#but i said there’d be plot to this fic so it must be done

[maroonmused]

stand unshaken – chapter 3 (spiderverse/insomniac spider-man crossover)

Miles shrugs. “My Wednesdays used to be Tekken with Ganke. Now they’re…well, still Tekken. And rhinos. Crazy blending with normal ‘till it’s…all normal. I guess.”

“Sure. Tekken and rhinos and alternate universes. Parameters of spider stuff are pretty flexible.”

“Exactly.” Miles blinks, his smile fading. “Hold up, did you just say–“

“That the multiverse is real?” Peter blurts out. “Now I did.”

[silkling]

Hi! I remember you said you liked angst. So... Can you write another fanfic on the AU where the rescue bots were found by the Autobots, with the following plot: Blades is forced to repair one of his comrades, who was seriously injured in battle?(either Chase or Heatwave, your choice) 👀

Ooh, I like this idea! Imma do it. I’m going to make it worse though. Just because. Apparently I really like hurting my favorite characters. Go figure, huh? Also, for those who didn’t read the first, this fic is in the same verse as this one.

Also, beware that there will be descriptions of graphic injury, so be wary if that’s something that upsets you.

———————————————————————————————————

The stars were silent. They always were, of course, but during the Ark’s recharge cycle the silence was all-consuming. Blades was in the rec room, sitting in the little viewport alcove that took up a small portion of the wall. They were passing by the same star system where the Sigma had been found by the Autobots, all those stellar cycles ago. 5 vorns or so had passed since then, which felt both like an eternity and like no time at all.

Blades knew Cybertronians lived a long time. In reality, 5 vorns was barely any time at all for one of their kind. But for Blades, who had once only ever known what it was to save lives, the past 5 vorns that he’d spent learning to take them had dragged on and felt almost unbearably long. He hadn’t actually killed yet, but he’d already learned how do so with a blaster, how to do it by hand, and even how to get in close and use a blade. Apparently, he was particularly talented at that last one. Given his name, the Protectobot found it rather ironic.

“Blades? What are you doing up? You do not have any duties this night cycle.”

The motorcycle startled, his engine revving and his processor snapping to attention at the unexpected voice. He hadn’t killed any bot yet, but he’d been in many, many, many battles now, some of which still gave him nightmares. He’d developed battle protocols very quickly after joining the Autobots, and now took being surprised as poorly as most of the others did. His optics sharpened and focused on his unexpected visitor with unnerving intensity, before his sighed and relaxed, tense armor plating loosening once more.

“Chase.” he greeted. “I know. I couldn’t sleep. I was remembering that last battle.”

“Ah.” Here, his friend’s voice softened, and the blue and white bot walked over to join him. He nudged the slimmer youngling aside until there was room in the small alcove for them both, sitting opposite from his friend and letting their pedes entangle. “I understand now.”

And he did. The last battle had been fought on a young planet, one with plentiful energon mines, and where the local species were still primitive. It had been a difficult fight. Blades, like always, had fought on the front lines with Hot Spot, Groove and Streetwise. Chase and Heatwave had been nearby, too. Somehow, they always found themselves fighting near each other. As with most of their battles, Boulder and First Aid had remained behind at the Ark, away from the battle proper. It hadn’t been a very unique battle, at first. Then the Deceptions had unveiled a new weapon. It had destroyed the planet, and every life that called it home had died with it. The Autobots had been too late to realize what was going on. They hadn’t been able to stop it, only flee before they too fell to the new weapon.

Blades had taken it particularly hard. The small motorcycle was a deeply empathetic bot, and it had hurt him to know they they had brought their war to another planet, and that it had resulted in the destruction of that planet and the loss of the lives there. Chase couldn’t blame him. All of Sigma-17 had felt that loss particularly hard. For all they had become soldiers after being awoken from stasis, all four younglings were still Rescue Bots at spark.

“We will simply have to stop Megatron next time and destroy his weapon before he can ever use it again.” Chase said after a moment of silence. He knew Blades wouldn’t be reassured by useless platitudes.

“Yeah.” His voice was quiet, distant. “Yeah.” he repeated, sounding a little more present as his optics hardened. “We will. He can’t do that again.”

Blades turned to meet his friend’s gaze, chin lifting. “We won’t let him do that again.”

Chase smiled, nodding. “No, we will not.” he agreed.

Blades relaxed completely then, sighing and shifting until he could lean into Chase’s chest. “Thank you, Chase.” he whispered.

“Of course.” he said, his arms coming around to press the smaller bot to his chest. “I will always be there to support you, when you have need of it. I am your Amica, after all.”

That was another thing that had changed in the past few vorns. Blades and Chase had always been fairly close, since they found they balanced each other out quiet nicely. Even before stasis, they’d been close friends. Blades appreciated Chase’s calm, peaceful logic and found it helped bring him him back from some of his nervous breakdowns, and Chase found Blades’s natural easy-going and sociable demeanor soothing and helpful at understanding situations which normally gave him pause. It had only taken them a couple vorns after coming out of stasis to formally perform the ritus and become Amica Endura.

Blades laughed, his hands raising to curl across the arms pressed to his chestplate. “Yeah, you are. And I’m yours. You can always count on me, Chase.”

A small smiled tugged at his lips, and he turned his gaze to the stars outside the viewport, in his chest, his spark pulsed, warm and fond with affection and belonging. He knew that Blades was feeling the same right now, both younglings basking in the quiet peace and comfort of each others’ presence.

“I know.”

Outside the Ark, the vast expanse of space stretched on. The billions of stars shone brightly, and life moved ever forward. Time ticked on, and though this moment was calm and soft, there would be many moments to come that would not be. What the future held exactly, only Primus knew. All his children could do now was hold on and ride out the storms to come.

——————————

When it finally happened, Blades would later reflect that he was surprised it had taken as long as it had. But then again, First Aid and Ratchet would probably have done their best to keep it from happening, to make sure his own emotional turmoil wouldn’t cause him to falter. They couldn’t stall it forever though, because this was War and at the end of it all that only meant he would have been forced into a situation like this eventually.

The orn had stared out like most other orns. The only difference has been that the Ark had landed on a planet that apparently was fairly rich in energon. The planet was also largely uninhabited, save some plant life, so they wouldn’t have to worry too much about harming the local inhabitants. Everything had been going well. They’d managed to collect energon, enough to halfway fill one of the storage hangars, and had been in the process of mining more when the Decepticon attacked.

Blades still wasn’t sure where they’d come from. Maybe they’d landed the Nemesis on the other side in the planet and travelled the rest of the way themselves. Maybe the Nemesis was still above them all, and the ‘Cons had just made planet fall on their own in order to attack. Either way, Megatron and his soldiers had showed up, and once again a battle had begun. Blades hadn’t been near his team or his brothers when the attack had begun, so he hadn’t been able to join them for the fight. That had made him nervous, but he’d fought anyway, shooting at any Decepticons who got close and using the terrain as cover.

It hadn’t been long before there’d been a call for medical attention, and Blades had reacted on instinct. He’d sprung from behind the large stone he was hiding behind, following the call until he came across Cliffjumper and Arcee. The other two-wheeler was unconscious, a shot leaking energon from her neck. Blades had been quick to get Cliffjumper’s help to drag her behind another nearby outcropping, and he’d settled down to begin triage care. As soon as he’d been assured of her survival, he’d swiftly ordered the red mech to bring her to the med-bay. Usually, he didn’t have the rank to order other bots around, but he’d found that all the Autobots would tend to do what he told them when it came to medical matters.

He’d turned to rejoin the battle when Sunstreaker had dragged his twin around the outcropping, dropping Sideswipe with a snarled demand to fix him. Blades hadn’t taken offense. They were split spark twins. They shared a spark bond with each other, like he did with his brothers. It wasn’t the same exact type of bond, but it was close enough that he understood the panic. He’d fixed the severed fuel lines, patched up the sparking wires, and welded the gashes in red armor before telling Sunstreaker to get his brother out of the battlefield. Sideswipe wouldn’t be able to fight further with his wounds, even though Blades had managed to repair the damage completely. He’d need to recover.

It had seemed that, after that, the Autobots must have figured out that the outcropping was where emergency triage was being done. They’d probably passed the information along their comm. system while Blades had been working on Arcee. After the Twins, Blades had found himself busy with many bots. Most had only surface level wounds, injuries that needed a quick patch so they could rejoin the fight. Others needed a full field repair and a retreat, like Sideswipe had. Blaster had been dragged to him by his Cassettes in critical condition, and Blades had had to quickly patch the life threatening damage, then order Ironhide, who’d come in to get a leaking fuel line patched, to take the host mech to Ratchet and First Aid immediately.

Once he’d done that and turned to his next field patient, he’d caught sight of blue and white armor. His processor was deep in its rescue and medical protocols, so much so he initially tuned out all his surroundings. It wasn’t until something in the back of his mind whispered that the shade of blue was familiar that he paused, taking in the full extent of the damage. It was bad. The bot’s chest was the worst off. It looked like they’d been hit point blank with an explosion. The metal armor of the chestplate was melted and twisted, with large areas gone altogether. Blades could see into their chest and realized that even their internals were damaged. The fuel pump was dented and had been pierced with a shard of blue armor, there were several sparking wires and spurting lines, and worst of all, the bot’s spark chamber was caved in and cracked. The motorcycle could see the weak glow of the bot’s spark. That wasn’t even all the damage. The poor bot was missing a leg, and it looked like one of their arms had been practically shredded. Even beyond that, most of the bot’s frame was dented or damaged in some way. Blades could barely pick out the paint job under all the damage.

Even so, his processor started screaming louder as he realized that, despite all that, the colors and patterns of that paint were familiar. Blades froze, his spark almost spasming with dawning horror, and he turned his gaze up to the bot’s face. As soon as he locked onto the slack face, saw the darkened optics that he knew should be a glowing amber, he couldn’t hold back the agonized keen as his medical protocols stuttered.

It was Chase.

His next vent came out in a harsh whine, and he couldn’t take his optics off the slack face of his Amica. Blades almost jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Jazz looking at him with a grim expression. The Third in Command nodded his helm at the prone form of his teammate.

“I know it’s tough’.” he said. “But ya gotta take care o’ him. If he don’t get the care he needs now, he ain’t gonna survive the trip to old’ Ratch. He needs you, mechlin’, so don’t spiral now.”

Blades stared at him for a sparkbeat, and then jolted as if he’d been physically shocked. He turned back to Chase, trying to ignore that it was his Amica who was wounded and dying in front of him, and got to work. He took in the damage once more, fingertips transforming into the tools he needed, and with a hard vent he forced his emotional processes to mute themselves in his processor, letting medical response protocols rise to the surface uninterrupted. Abruptly, his previously distraught EM field went blank and numb, making the bots around him wince with the suddenness if it.

Jazz stepped back, a flicker of regret in his visored optics. He recognized what Blades had done. He’d shut down his emotional response core. It wasn’t something the average bot could do, and he suspected the youngling only knew how to because of his medical training. The only other bot he’d seen do that was Prowl, and the Praxian had to do it if he wanted to come up with his tactics without crippling himself emotionally. Luckily, the emotional core could be brought back online later, but he knew it was never a pleasant process for the bot who had done so to come out of the emotional numbness. He only regretted that Blades had found it necessary to do so in the first place. No youngling should have to do something so drastic. It wasn’t right.

In front of Jazz and the other Autobots who were gathered behind the outcropping for minor repair, Blades worked on. He ignored the sounds of weapons fire and destruction beyond the small safe haven he was huddled in, focusing only on the task in front of him. He had to make sure Chase survived. He had to.

Failure wasn’t an option.

——————————

The rest of the orn passed in a haze. Blades was aware of things distantly, but wasn’t processing anything emotionally. He knew Jazz took Chase off to the Ark as soon as he’d ensured his friend wouldn’t die in the next few groons, until Ratchet or First Aid could get to him. After that, things happened quickly. He’d patched up the other bots around his outcropping who’d only needed minor repair, but he’d had no major patients after that. And then Megatron was calling a retreat, and Ironhide had come to guide Blades back to the Ark. None of the older bots seemed upset at the two-wheeler’s numb demeanor. He was in shock. He knew it. They knew it. They didn’t hold it against him.

Once he had been safely delivered to the starship, Ironhide had gone off. Blades wasn’t paying attention to where he’d gone. Maybe some of the others were gathering the last of the energon. Maybe everyone was preparing for take off. He wasn’t fully aware, wasn’t fully processing his surroundings. He drifted along in a haze, until he found himself in front of the medbay doors. That was when his focus sharpened. Usually after a battle, he’d join Ratchet and his brother in the medbay and do his part to help. He needed to go in.

The only thing making him hesitate was Chase. His Amica was in there. He’d done all he could on the battlefield, but had it been enough? Could he face it again?

He would have to. He stiffened his spinal strut and steeled his resolve, then stepped forward and the doors opened. He stepped into the medbay, his optics roving over the occupied berths, until they landed on a trio of berths by the far wall. On one, there was a familiar blue and white frame. Chase. On the second, a red mech lay prone and limp. Heatwave. On the third, a bulky green bot was resting on his side, unconscious and unaware. Boulder.

No.

Blades’s spark screamed in agony. He could see some of the damage from here, but he couldn’t see it all. Heatwave’s lower half looked like it had been crushed under something extremely heavy. The metal armor was dented and almost flattened. Blades could also see that the red mech’s optics were blackened and shattered, if if they’d been hit by a blaster bolt. Boulder wasn’t much better off. His entire back was a melted, twisted mess. Blades could see his spinal strut poking out of the ruined armor. There was so much energon. All three of his teammates were covered in it. It almost looked like they’d decided to incorporate pink into their paint jobs.

An agonized keen tore its way free from his vocalizer, and and medical protocols he had been ready to engage fell away under the onslaught of emotional anguish. He didn’t notice how First Aid had gasped and pressed a hand to his chest plates the second he’d noticed Sigma-17’s damaged states. He didn’t hear his brother call out to him in concern as he keened. He didn’t see Ratchet curse and begin to turn towards him, looking both irritated and worried.

He did, however, feel the hands that clasped his shoulders, the chest that pressed up against his back. He startled, drawing in a rasping gasp, and then he felt a soft warmth wrap around his spark. He knew that presence.

“Streetwise.” he whimpered, twisting to stare up at his oldest brother with wide, over-bright optics.

“Hey, Blades.” Streetwise gave him a small smile. “Let’s go, yeah?”

“B-But I have to stay. I need-“

“Ratchet and ‘Aid can handle it. This was an easy battle. They handled a lot worse than this before you came along.” he cut it. “You won’t be of any use in the state you’re in, Blades. Besides, I’m fairly sure it goes against medical code to come in and treat patients when you’re covered in filth from outside.” he said sternly.

Blades made to protest, but the soothing pulse in his spark from First Aid distracted him enough that Streetwise was able to guide him out of the medbay. He started gently ushering his brother towards the communal washracks, making sure Blades didn’t run into anyone in his shocked state.

“Streetwise, I gotta go back. They need me, I-I can’t-“

“None of that now. You did plenty today. Blades, let them handle it. Your well-being matters too. Right now, that’s actually all I care about. Your team will be fine. Have faith in Ratchet and ‘Aid, yeah?”

Blades whimpered, but he didn’t have the chance to argue further because that was when they came upon the washracks. Hot Spot was there, and he grimaced when he saw the state of his brother, but he forced a smile a moment later and reached out to rub Blades’s audial fins in a way he knew the smaller bot liked. The finial under his fingers quivered faintly, and Hot Spot wrapped a hand around Blades’s wrist to tug him into the washracks. He’d managed to get the others out earlier, and they’d been fairly understanding when he’d explained that Blades was in shock and needed a proper cleaning.

“Come on, bitty Blades.” The largest Protectobot whispered. “Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah? You’re covered in energon, that can’t feel good.”

Blades went stiff at his brother’s words, looking down at his frame and noticing for the first time that his armor was covered in energon. Chase’s energon. A pained whine was pulled from his vocalizer, and Hot Spot winced when he realized he’d said the wrong thing.

Streetwise shot the bigger bot an unimpressed look, but both knew that talking to Blades now would be useless. The smallest Protectobot, though not by too much, had always been prone to worry and panic. Blades was an anxious bot, it was just part of who he was. It meant that sometimes, his worry overcame him and he spiraled. His brothers could always tell when that happened, because his spark pulsed almost frantically and they could sense the overwhelming panic through the bond. When Blades got like this, he lost awareness of his surroundings. They’d long since learned that the best way to soothe him was to use the bond and send comfort and safety along it, to wrap their brother’s spark in feelings of love and reassurance and peace, and pull him out of his panic that way. Thankfully, Blades didn’t spiral often. He was overly nervous, sure, but he’d never let it stop him from doing what was needed of him, and he’d learned to not let it control him. That didn’t mean his emotions didn’t get the better of him sometimes, though.

Hot Spot gently tugged them all over to one of the cubicles, where he’d already grabbed the items they needed. With all three of them in there, it was a little crowded, but they could make it work. The spray of solvent was turned on, and Blades barely twitched as it hit his frame. Neither Streetwise nor Hot Spot were bothered as their younger brother remained silent. They worked together to clean up the mess that was Blades, using wash rags to wipe away the dirt and energon, and then smaller brushes to get in between the armor plating and into the transformation seams. It took some time, especially with Blades so unresponsive, but eventually they had him fully cleaned and dried, and were tugging him back towards their berthroom.

Blades himself was still in a daze. The energon was gone from his armor, and that certainly helped, but he couldn’t stop thinking of his teammates in such dire condition in the medbay. He couldn’t get the image of Chase’s broken frame on the battlefield out of his processor.

Blades was a gentle spark, perhaps even more so than his easy-going flyer brother. Groove was a pacifist, and Blades was deeply empathetic and his brothers knew that he felt things on an emotional level far more keenly than they were really able to grasp. The rest of the Protectobots had been able to adapt to the War, especially since their introduction to it had been more gradual. But Blades, who had always hated seeing anyone hurt, to the point he’d taken any extra classes he could at the Rescue Academy just to be able to help as many others as he could? The War was hard on him. He’d adapt, in time, but with how sudden his introduction to it had been it would be a while yet before the violence stopped making him so upset.

The trio eventually arrived at their berthroom, and when the door closed behind them Blades felt Streetwise and Hot Spot move away from him. A klik later, he felt another frame press against him, and a pair of arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders. It took only a beat for him to recognize Groove. He whimpered, his fingers twitching and clinging to the copter bot. Blades felt soothing warmth wrap around his spark from the bond, coming from all four of his brothers. Love, warmth, assurance, and peace soaked into his spark, and Blades let out a broken noise as everything from the day crashed into him.

Groove crooned gently, tightening his grip on his younger brother. “Easy, Blades.” he whispered. “We have you. We won’t let you fall, yeah? Just let it out.” he soothed.

Blades shuddered, then sobbed and clung tighter to his brother. He felt Streetwise press up against his back, and Hot Spot’s arms came to way around them all. The four of them stood there for a while, Blades sobbing and gasping as all his panic and worry rushed through him at once. He hadn’t been able to really process it, before. That was the danger of muting ones emotional core, as he had done earlier. It meant that he’d need to handle the emotions he’d blocked off all at once instead of steadily and as they came. So, he was forced to stay in his brothers’ hold, letting them keep him from falling as everything crashed into him. For many breems, he wept into Groove’s shoulder, his own shoulders shaking with the force of what he was feeling.

But, finally, his cries petered out, and then he was just venting harshly, shaking faintly in the aftermath of it all. He felt Hot Spot smooth a hand down his side, then come back up to rub his finial before his biggest brother spoke.

“How about we watch some of that old drama we used to like before the War? We still have the whole series downloaded on the old travel holo-pad. I know you missed a lot of the episodes that came out while you were in stasis, bitty Blades.” he said.

Blades reset his vocalizer, wincing at his staticky and rough his voice was even after doing so. “You have the whole series of But a Chance?”

Streetwise hummed. “You bet we do. We kept downloading the new episodes that came out after…” he paused, trailing off. Blades knew what he was talking about. “Well, we kept downloading the new ones. Never watched them, though. Not beyond the ones that came out before them Purge.”

“Didn’t feel right. Not without you there to make all your little comments.” Hot Spot quipped.

Blades huffed a weak sound of amusement. “You still watched some without me, though.”

“Awe, only a couple, bitty Blades.” Hot Spot smiled. “Not too many. So? What do you say?”

Blades gave another huff. “Yeah.” he agreed,

“Good, because I’ve already got it set up.” Groove said cheerfully.

“Presumptuous.” Streetwise teased.

“Shut it. You’re the one who told me to prepare for a Blades Cheer Up Night.” Groove snipped back.

“We all knew it was time for a Blades Cheer Up Night. Why are you sparklings arguing?” Hot Spot asked playfully.

“I’m older than you.” Streetwise said, frowning.

“Only by half a breem.” Hot Spot sang.

“And I’m not a sparkling!” Groove protested.

“Hush, little brother.” the two older Protectobots said at the same time.

Blades giggled weakly. “Yeah, hush. The big bots are talking.” he rasped.

Groove turned an offended look on him. “We’re all older than you. And bigger.” he sniffed.

“I’m prettier though.”

There were noises of outrage around him, and Blades felt his lips quirk up. Even as Hot Spot tweaked his finial in retaliation, he just felt his smile relax a little more. His spark was still heavy with grief and fear, but already it felt warmer and lighter. He didn’t protest as Streetwise eventually got the other two to simmer down, pushing them all towards the large berth. At the head of the berth, the holo-pad was set up on a small desk. As soon as all four brothers were settled, Groove started the episode Blades remembered having left off on, and they settled down to watch.

Things were peaceful, for a while. They got another episode in, and Blades couldn’t help himself then as he watched the characters go about on screen.

“I’m sorry, Clearview did what now? That’s stupid. She’s stupid. Why would she even do that?”

“Well,” Groove purred. “It could be because she’s actually-“

“No!” Blades hissed, drawing back a pede and planting it firmly in his brother’s hip, sending the flyer tumbling off the berth. “No spoilers!”

Groove cackled, but crawled back onto the berth and flopped on top of his younger brother. “Okay, okay. Have it your way.”

“You two are being far too loud for anyone else to enjoy to show.” Streetwise said blandly.

“Blame Groove.” Blades sniffed. “He started it.”

“You’re the one who kicked me!” Groove squawked, outraged.

“I will not be spoiled! Bots who spoil the show for other bots recharge on the couch, remember? That’s the rule!”

“Well, we don’t have a couch.” Groove said smugly. “So there.”

“We have a floor, don’t we?”

“I’m not recharging on the floor!”

“You are if I make you!”

“Try it!”

“Fine!” Blades huffed, and proceeded to launch himself at his brother.

Groove yelped, not expecting Blades to actually go through with it, and the two wrestled on the berth before their elder brothers pulled them apart. Streetwise grabbed Groove and rolled on top of him, while Hot Spot dragged Blades into his lap and wrapped the motorcycle in his arms.

“Hush.” he admonished. “It’s show time now, not wrestle like feral sparklings time.”

“We’re not sparklings!” Groove and Blades protested in unison.

“Then stop acting like it. Now shut up and watch.” Streetwise said, though they could all hear the grin in his voice.

There were grumbling protests, but the two younger bots obeyed and went still. After another couple episodes, they were released to drape across each other. Time wore on, and the Ark slipped into it’s nightly recharge cycle. By this time, Blades’s brothers were in recharge themselves, curled around and on top of each other while Blades himself continued to watch the drama. He was waiting, after all.

Another groon passed, and the door to their berthroom opened. First Aid trudged in, exhaustion hanging from his frame. He went straight for the berth, tipping right into it and not even bothering to get his legs in. Blades huffed a laugh, gently tugging his younger brother up into the berth. He reached out to turn off the holo-pad, then refocused on First Aid as the youngest Protectobot cuddled firmly into his side. He knew his brother was tired. Pit, he could feel the depths of First Aid’s exhaustion over the bond. But he had to know.

“‘Aid? Are they…?”

“They’re fine.” First Aid mumbled. “They’ll make a full recovery. You don’t have to worry, Blades.”

All at once, the last of the fear and worry left him, and Blades released all tension in his frame with a heavy vent. “Thank you.” he whispered.

First Aid hummed softly. “‘Course. They took care of you when we couldn’t. I won’t let you lose your team if I can help it, Blades. ‘Specially not your Amica.” he mumbled, his words slurring towards the end.

Blades smiled, his arms wrapping around the little medic as First Aid nuzzled into his embrace. “Yeah.” he murmured. They really had taken care of him. “Recharge, ‘Aid. You need it.”

“You too.”

“I will.” Blades agreed. “Goodnight, little brother.”

“‘Night.” First Aid made a sleepy, content churring noise. “Love you…”

Blades blinked, then tightened his grip around him. “Yeah.” he whispered. “Love you too.”

He watched his youngest brother drift off into recharge, then offlined his optics ans let himself drift off as well. Just before he fell unconscious, he felt Groove roll on top of them both, and Hot Spot’s arms coming around all three of them. From the other side of the largest Protectobot, Streetwise’s hand came to rest on Blades’s head, his thumb twitching against his finial.

Comfortable and warm, his frame and spark both surrounded by the peace and love of his brothers, Blades drifted off into recharge, his rest easy and quiet with the reassurance that his Amica and his team would recover. His spark was warm with the sheer joy, adoration, and contentment that pulsed all along the bond, and his rest was easy and undisturbed.

Beyond the walls of the Ark, the stars were silent.

———————————————————————————————————

And here it is! What did y’all think? For those who don’t remember, the Purge that Streetwise mentioned was the massacre of the Rescue Bots.

Also, poor Blades. He has it rough. At least he’s not alone, right?

Let me know how you liked that! If you want more of this verse, I might expand on it after I take care of more prompts. (Or you could request a specific scenario yourself.)

Until next time, folks!

[p-artsypants]

Longest Night (24) Shocking

And Marinette had thought Highschool had been hard. Right now, in this moment, she'd give anything to go back to those petty arguments and gossip fueled drama. But she couldn't. Instead, she and Adrien were trapped here, being punished, humiliated, tortured, for being heroes, all broadcasted for the world to see. At least she and her kitty were in this together. For now. Whump!Fic

Ao3 | FF.net

Just as a pleasant reminder: this story will have a happy ending, one that is better than ‘they both died and were free from their suffering’. I wouldn’t do that to you guys.

This chapter, we go back to Marinette and Adrien. There is gross misuse of a needle and thread (Trigger warning), and some shocking revelations (pun intended).

—

A small room. Concrete walls, ceiling and floor. A single metal door, with a cold metal table and chair. Illuminated with single flickering lightbulb, casting a sickly yellow light around the surfaces. This kind of room most people would avoid. It offered no comfort, no safety. It held secrets, and no mercy.

To Marinette, it felt like home.

Silence had been a constant companion this last month. Where as Marinette had gotten used to Tikki’s constant presence before, now she was startled by noise. Any noise. She could hear from this dank, secluded room, the sound of water running. Most likely someone else getting a shower.

And the light. There was only an old bulb to illuminate the room, but it was still much too bright for her eyes. So she rested her head in her arms on the table top. The icy water from her power washing still clung to her body, the hospital gown hanging on her turning damp. There was no warmth from the table or chair. Only cold, hard, unforgiving silence.

All there was to do was wait. All there ever was now.

Wait for death.

Something heinous happened in the dark. Every minute of every day, she stewed in fear, in anger, in injustice. The cold bony hand of wrath squeezed her heart, crushing compassion, mercy, and care from her very soul.

No one was coming.

Then she could let them all go. If they were watching, then they could all suffer with guilt.

Sure, she was Ladybug, but she was also a kid. Didn’t that mean anything to anyone? Or were they all expecting her to save herself?

But they had abandoned her. With whatever had happened back at school. The facts were blurry at this point, but she remembered everyone shunning her.

So why would her being Ladybug change anything?

But Adrien…

Her heart softened. He didn’t deserve whatever fate had befallen him. He had fought so hard, so valiantly, there was no blame on him.

He was the only person she could forgive.

But he was gone. And now she alone.

Alone in the silence.

So now the question remained: Dare she save herself?

What kind of life awaited her outside, anyway? What kinds of things were they saying about her?

Ladybug, the failure. The little girl that fooled the whole city. The disgusting pig.

There’d be hell to pay. She’d show Salo what revenge really looked like.

They thought Ladybug was red? She’d give them red.

Marinette sat up slightly, her bangs shielding the light from her eyes. She looked down at her hands.

Bony, dry, callus, and bruised. The hands of a corpse. That’s what she felt like at least. This was some sort of limbo she lived in. Half aware, plotting and calculating her revenge…the other half…twisted. The hallucinations in the cell were so vivid, so real. It was hard to tell the difference between them and what was real.

I’ve gone insane. She insisted in her mind. Normal people didn’t think like this. Normal people didn’t daydream about strangling people with their intestines.

This room was too big. She wanted back in the closet.  

The door opened again, Salo and one of her henchmen escorting another prisoner onto the bleak room. They had them by the arm, and all but shoved them into the room before slamming the door shut behind them.

Then suddenly, Marinette wasn’t alone in the silence anymore.

A young man, tall, pale. He was just a skeleton with skin stretched over him. He was incredibly bruised, and his legs were stained with filth. His blonde hair was drenched and also looked stringy and dull.

Did she look like that too? She wondered.

The young man toddled into the room, using the wall for balance.

Then he looked up, and met her eyes.

An impossible green. A green that haunted her for days. The green that accompanied the last echoes of his voice.

My Lady! My Lady!

It was Adrien.

And she hadn’t recognized him.

Marinette bolted from her chair and staggered over to him.

“Kitty?” She whispered, ever so gently.

Tears gathered in his eyes as he reached his one working arm out to caress her face. “My lady?” His whisper was even softer, his voice was gone, and he only spoke with the air in his lungs.  

“What have they done to you?” One hand held his cheek, as the other rested on his chest. She could feel his ribs, and the dent in his sternum she had caused with her crowbar.

He didn’t answer, his lips pulling into a thin line.

Adrien leaned down, pressing a soft kiss on her lips. Then he rested his forehead against hers. There was a purr deep down in his chest, a remnant of being the Black Cat for so long. He still only spoke with a breath. “For better or for worse, in sickness and in health. I may have been forced to say that, but I take my vows seriously.”

“Kitty…” She cried, resting her hand on the back of his neck. “I love you so much. I thought…I thought they had killed you by now.”

“They gave it a good shot.” He nuzzled against her. “But as long as I know you’re still with me, I’ll keep fighting.”

Her fingers curled into his skin, her voice dripping with ferocity. “I will never leave you.”

The door opened again, much too soon for both of them, and they clung tighter together.

“Together again for five minutes and you just can’t keep your hands off of each other. Young love…what a joke.”  Salo’s voice pierced through their bubble.

Adrien didn’t look up, didn’t give her any attention. His lady was back in his arms, and that’s all that mattered.

“So selfish.” She scoffed. “You two aren’t even interested in the guest I’ve brought?”

Marinette shook her head. She didn’t want to see anyone from outside. They all abandoned her, abandoned them, why should she care?

But Salo had never given them a choice, and so they were dragged back into that big room where evil persisted.

The lights were blinding, and they both had to hide their faces in their arms.

Then they were being chained up, and there was nothing to do but clench their eyes shut and wait until they adjusted.

“What’re the stats, Harken?” Salo asked a corner of the room.

“Over 2 million online. We have some from Japan and Australia tuned in this time too.”

“My my, this is becoming a very big deal.”

Marinette, squinting heavily, peered up and looked around. The room was still pretty bare, save for a wooden chair that sat between her and Adrien.

“You two missed out on so much while you were sleeping. You remember my Eddy, right?”

Neither of them answered, but it was a given. The arrest of Edward Savauge is what had gotten them here in the first place.

“Well, looks like he’s been released on lack of evidence. No witnesses. Sure is interesting, don’t you think?”

Marinette rolled her eyes. It really wasn’t the surprising. It just sucked that their effort of bagging him had gone to waste. “So?” Marinette asked. “There’s no reason to keep us anymore.”

“On the contrary, Miss Bug. Now there’s no possible way I can let you leave. Not even if you pinky promise that you won’t say a word.”

“I figured as much.” She drawled.

“Now, don’t you want to know what’s being said about you out there?”

“Not particularly.”

“Come on, aren’t you just the tiniest bit curious?”

“If you’re trying to egg me on, I’m assuming it can’t be good.”

Salo laughed. “Boy, you are so full of spite! I love it!” She called over her shoulder. “Pasolini, I think you can bring our guest in.”

Marinette looked over to Adrien, who’s eyes were downcast. Seemed he was just as unenthused about their guest as she was.

A young woman was ushered in. She had a bag over her head.

But Marinette recognized the orange sweater immediately.

The girl was shoved into the chair before Salo ripped the bag off of her head.

Adrien and Marinette shared looks of disgust.

Salo grinned. “Glad you could join us, Miss Rossi. I’m Salo, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Lila, for all the acting that she had performed, was downright terrified. “Please, let me go! I didn’t do anything! Please!”

Salo looked to her prisoners, finding them stone faced. “Why Marinette, aren’t you happy to see your best friend? And Adrien, I know you must feel guilty for cheating on her with Marinette, but you must be happy to see your girlfriend, right?”

Adrien scowled at them both, not saying anything with his mouth, but volumes with his eyes.

“Hmm, there seems to be some misunderstandings here. Let’s see if we can find that interview.”

The tv behind Salo lit up, Lila’s face on it with a news ticker underneath. She was teary-eyed and delicately dabbed her cheek with a napkin. “It sickens me. Adrien isn’t actually Chat Noir, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng isn’t Ladybug. You see, Adrien and I…well, I see no point in keeping it a secret anymore, we were dating. Under the radar, of course, he’s not allowed to date. And then he told me that he came up with this idea of a performance piece and asked if I wanted to play the role of Ladybug. I said no, absolutely not, and so he broke up with me. I think the whole wedding bit was really just a ploy to make me jealous and have me crawl back to him. But now I know that he’s just sick and wants attention. Marinette has been that way since I met her. She’s always tried to get attention and lied to do so. I think we should all stop giving it to them and turn off the stream.”

Lila turned pale and shrank in her seat at the absolute rage on Marinette’s face, as she turned her gaze to stare at Lila.

Salo shrugged. “Well Marinette, looks like we’ve been found out. Now everyone knows about our performance piece. And Adrien…your relationship isn’t so secret anymore, I’m afraid.”

Adrien trembled in his anger, before an inhuman sound ripped from his throat. The sound of a caged animal breaking.

Salo just laughed at him. “Mm, interesting. I wonder…who’s lying?” Sang Salo. “Ladybug always wants justice, right?” She leaned on Lila’s shoulder, a spool of thread with a needle in her hand. “Then will you snitch? Knowing that snitches get stitches?”

Lila sobbed. “Marinette, I’m sorry! You know me—Always good for a j-joke!”

“Ah ah ah, I wasn’t talking to you Miss Rossi.”

Marinette saw the needle and thread for what it was. Another torture device. Maybe the old Marinette would have taken the easy way out. ‘Taken the high road’ so to speak, and let things unfold by themselves. She would give Lila this lie, setting her free, and saving herself from unnecessary pain.

But this Marinette was ready to hit where it hurt, no matter the sacrifice. And Salo was giving her the platform to do so.

“A joke.” Marinette repeated. “I’m a joke to you.”

“No! That’s not—! What I mean is—“

“My suffering has always been a joke to you.” Marinette interrupted. “When you got me expelled for something I didn’t do. When you tricked everyone into thinking I was some sort of creep. When you endangered me as Ladybug by taking Chat Noir out of the fight with a lie.”

“But—no! I was—I was just trying to make friends and get Adrien to like me! None of that stuff was on purpose!”

Marinette scoffed, and turned her head away. Even here, after all this, Lila was still lying. Arguing with her was not worth it.

Salo was the one to poke the bear. “So you hate her, Marinette? Having her here angers you?”

Marinette considered this. Then answered coldly. “No. She is annoying. Irritating. If you had asked me when I first came here how I felt, I would have said yes, I hated her. But now, after all I’ve felt, all I’ve learned…what I feel for her is not nearly what I feel for you, Salo.”

“Oh!” Salo rested a hand on her chest. “Aww, Marinette, I feel the same for you! Would you…be my enemy?”

Marinette glared at her. “I hope you choke.”

Salo laughed. “She’s so sassy! I love this new Ladybug! What about you, kitty cat? How do you feel about all of this?”

They looked to Adrien, who was staring at the floor. He looked like he wasn’t paying attention.

Salo snapped in front of his face. “Hey, I asked you a question, Pussy Cat.”

He looked up at Salo, then at Lila, and then back down to the floor.

Salo whistled lowly, “man, isolation was not good for you.”

Adrien didn’t respond to that, and kept his gaze on the floor.

To the outside, he looked resigned and obedient, but in his head, dark thoughts of revenge circled. Violent, unnatural, evil thoughts.

“Well,” said Salo, patting Lila’s head. “If having her here isn’t that big of a deal, I might as well get rid of her.” Her hand went to her hip.

Lila started crying. “Marinette! Please help me! Tell her to let me go! Please! I beg you!”

Marinette let out a dark laugh. “You think I can do anything? You think if I had any power, I wouldn’t have saved myself by now?”

Salo withdrew the gun, pointing it between Lila’s eyes.

“Please Marinette!”

Salo smiled. “My goodness! Ladybug, savior of Paris, would allow a civilian to get hurt?”

“Lila isn’t a civilian.” Marinette corrected, her voice deep. “She’s a parasite. A liar and a manipulator. She hurts everyone around her, and only causes trouble. Her disappearance would only be a good thing.”

The barrel rested between Lila’s eyebrows. “So I can dispose of her? You don’t mind?”

Marinette shrugged, her face blank. “Blow her brains out.”

Lila sobbed. “I lied!” She screamed. “I lied about everything! This is real! There’s no performance going on! I never dated Adrien and Marinette never lied! Marinette never took any pictures of Adrien! She never stole anything! She didn’t cheat on her test! She didn’t push me down the stairs! I never met any celebrities! And I hate Ladybug!”

Salo looked at her with surprise. “What? Is this a confessional?”

“I told the truth! Isn’t that what you wanted from me?”

Salo barked a laugh. “You think this is about you?! You’re such a stupid bitch! I can’t believe you actually thought you had anything to do with this!”

“…then…why was I here?” She asked, trembling.

“You were the one broadcasting yourself all over the news! You know, I thought you did have some connection to them, but you actually lied and put yourself in trouble! You’re such an idiot. Why did you think this was a good idea? You’re so desperate for attention that you painted a giant target on your back.” She laughed again, being amused by the whole thing. “You have the gall to believe that you’re important in any capacity? My revenge is against Ladybug and Chat Noir! If you have nothing to do with them, then you’re useless to me!”  

“Marinette!” Lila screamed. “Help me! Please!”

Marinette glared at her. “Even if I could, I wouldn’t.”

Lila cried out, bawling her eyes out, pleading with everyone.

Then the barrel of the gun pulled away. And Salo started laughing. “Wow, harsh. And I thought I went through petty high school drama.” She clicked the gun back into the holster. “But I can’t let Marinette have to satisfaction of you being killed. Warren?” She nodded to a man in the back of the room. “Take her out to some park and leave her. They’ll find her.”

“Yes ma’am,” said the brute.

“But before you go…I want Miss Rossi to witness this.” She held up the spool and needle, holding it in the light. “Pasolini, if you would be so kind?”

Marinette didn’t show any outside signs of panic or fear, but tightened her hands into fists.

Pasolini came from behind, resting one hand on her shoulder, and the other other throat, tilting her chin up.

“You’re not going to fight?” Asked Salo. “No screaming? No kicking?”

“Why? Is it not as fun for you if I behave?” Marinette bit back.

Salo grinned, snapping a rubber glove onto her hand. “You got me there. Still going to sew your mouth shut though.”

Marinette looked to all the world calm and collected, as Salo used a sharpie to mark the inside and outside of her lips, creating the guide.

She took hold of her bottom lip and pulled it forward.

Marinette’s eyebrows drew together as the needle pierced her skin, going in the bottom and out the top. There was no numbing, no relief, only stinging sharp pain. Even when the needle was through, the cotton thread ripped through the puncture. Then Salo moved to the top lip, puncturing through the bottom to the top, and then back down again.

Under and over, a basic stitch pattern. Marinette didn’t make a peep, but the tears still rolled down her cheeks. Blood oozed from the piercings, smearing around and turning Marinette’s mouth red.

Finally, Salo made one last stitch, eight in total, and made sure it was pulled tight. Then she tied it off and snipped the access. “I’m not much of a seamstress, but I think I did pretty good!”

She brought a mirror over so Marinette could see her new look. The way she had done it forced her lips into a pout, and right around the edges there were little black lines were the thread was visible. Testing the strength, Marinette found she could very slightly open her mouth, enough to maybe drink some water, before it hurt.

“Ah, much better! Now I don’t have to listen to your god awful annoying voice anymore!” Salo cheered.

Marinette tore her gaze away from her reflection, to glare at Salo. There was a threat in her eyes, but it would continue to be unvoiced.

“What do you think, Adrien?” asked Salo, turning to him. “You’ve been awfully quiet this evening.”

Adrien whipped his head up, his face full of rage, eyes burning, and hissed at her.

Salo grimaced. “Yikes. Nothing worse than a poorly behaved kitty. Well, we’ll just have to train that out of you.” She waved at a man in the shadows, gesturing him forward. “Warren, you can escort Miss Rossi out now. I don’t particularly care for keeping her around.”

The room went into motion. Lila was bagged again and dragged out of the room, while other devices were brought forward.

For Adrien, it was a large metal rack, with straps for the arms and legs, and a link for the collar around his neck. It almost looked like a cross. He was strapped in, both arms, and his feet were splayed apart.

Then they attached pads with wires to his palms, the pads of his feet, the underside of his arms by his armpits, and the area right below his bellybutton.

Marinette watched all of this with a careful eye, not able to ask questions, but extremely wary. She could have sworn she had seen those pads in a movie or something.

Next, the men moved two metal hoops on stands on either side of her. They weren’t too big. Large enough to comfortably fit her arms through. At it seemed exactly what they wanted her to do.

Then finally, Salo brought over two buckets and a pitcher of water. “Well, don’t you look just absolutely curious?”

Marinette flicked her eyes over all the components in the room, an answer to her question starting to form.

“Now this is a fairly simple device of my own design. You’ll be putting your hands through these hoops, and holding up these buckets of water. As time goes on, I’ll add a little water at a time. All you have to do is hold them still. If you touch the hoop…well…” Instead of finishing the sentence, Salo rested a wooden dowel on the edge of the ring, just touching it ever so briefly.

A spark flew off of it, and Adrien’s whole body seized up for a second. He let out a grunt of pain.

“The longer you touch the ring, the longer the shock. But you can handle this, right? Ladybug is so strong!”

But Marinette wasn’t about to tell her that it was only because of the earrings that she had such heightened strength. It’s not like she could, anyways.

Two goons took hold of her arms and fed them through the hoops. They placed the handles of the buckets in her hands, and then taped her fist closed, so she couldn’t drop them. With the buckets in place, it was impossible to pull her hands back through the hoops.

Even with a few inches of clearance on all sides, she still could feel the static around her wrists. It didn’t help that she was still pretty wet and she was holding metal buckets.

“One last thing,” Salo snickered, placing a bag over Marinette’s head. “Can’t have you knowing where the ring is, right?”

Despite the tape, Marinette clenched the bucket tighter. If that spark was any indication, she’d be shocked too, and a shock could contract her muscles and freeze her in place.

Then water started to pour into the buckets. Just about a cup on each side. But Marinette had lost a lot of muscle in isolation.  

“15 minutes, and then you can go back in your little cage.” Salo giggled, the chair Lila had sat in scrapping across the floor. “Oh, and by the way, if you touch the ring for too long, you could kill Adrien. Those bolts will cross the body, passing by his heart. I know his heart stops when you walk into the room, but let’s not get too literal, huh?”

Maybe it would be a mercy to kill him. Surely it would be painful the whole time, but…no. No, she couldn’t do that. It was just her twisted brain obsessed with death.

Five minutes in, and she was already struggling. Her shoulders, biceps, and even her neck hurt. She hadn’t hit the hoop yet, but it was only a matter of time. Salo added a little more water.

At seven minutes, her arms lowered the tiniest amount too much and she touched the bottom of the ring, sending out a bolt of pain up her arm for a millisecond.

Somewhere in front of her, Adrien barked in pain.

Shortly after, the pain had mostly disappeared, only leaving a slight tingle behind instead.

Another minute passed, and Marinette sank again, the touch lasting a little longer this time. She yelped in pain, pulling at her stitches.

“Uh oh, are we giving up already?”

Marinette was sweating, her muscles trembling. Her elbows felt like they were hyper extended and her wrists ached. The metal handle dug into the crease of her fingers.

Another round of tears cleaned streaks on her dirty face.

Another touch, longer this time. And when she over corrected, she touched the top too, her whole arm convulsing and violently jerking.

Adrien wasn’t fairing much better. He closed his eyes, unable to watch, and waited for the inevitable pain to come.

The first was short, and it also didn’t even hurt. It just caused all of his muscles to contract. The wires in the paddles left a tingling sensation behind.

The next one was worse. There was really no way to describe the sensation except for painful. Excruciatingly painful. A flash of white behind his eyes, every muscle in his body contracting, tightening, and feeling like he was tearing apart. The bolts burned his skin, heat zipping across his flesh and into his bones.

Each touch, even the most gentle, brought agonizing pain to every inch of his body.

He knew he was screaming, but it was unbidden. Happening without his consent.

Once the shock had ended, and the pain had just about subsided, another shock would be inflicted.

Marinette felt like her arms were going to rip off. There couldn’t be more than a liter in either bucket, but they were just so heavy.

She trembled as she tried to hang on. But finally, at the 14 minute mark, her arms gave out, and she collapsed, bringing the rings down with her to the floor.

Sparks flew everywhere, not just burning her arms, but the rest of her as well.

Adrien’s screams sounded like a garbage disposal in the sink. His voice had been destroyed in isolation, and all that was left was gurgling and yowling.

Then it all stopped.

Marinette laid on the floor, her arms itching from burns. She was exhausted, and couldn’t find the strength to do anything but breathe.

“Is that it?” Someone asked.

“Johnson, Check for a pulse.”

Marinette felt someone holding her wrist. “She’s still got one.” Then she waited on bated breath. “He’s got one too.”

Salo pulled the hood off of her head as men ripped the tape off her fingers. “Wow! What a shocking development!”

Marinette opened her mouth to protest, finding the thread looser, but not undone. She also tasted a lot of blood.

Salo plucked one end of the thread and pulled it tight again. “Hmm, that might just leave a scar.”

Marinette pushed up on one arm so she could look at Adrien.

He hung lifelessly by the wrists. His skin was blackened in some areas, in bolt shaped lines. His hair had fluffed up from the static.

Salo snapped in front of his face, but there was no response. “Ugh, guess we’re done. Can hurt someone who’s unconscious, right?”

They were lead back to the first set of cells they had been kept in. She wobbled, but walked on her own, while Adrien was dragged by his working arm.

The tiny cell was almost comforting. Being in the cold, quiet dark. Tucked into a small corner of the world.

She couldn’t speak, but she moaned, making noise to get Adrien’s attention.

He didn’t answer.

Not that she really expected him to.

With a sigh, she slid down to sit, resting her feet against the door.

It groaned in response.

That’s right, these cells were just old ductwork that had been repurposed. The metal wasn’t very thick, like sheets of steel, but it was sharp.

An idea started to roll around in her head. Risky, but plausible. If they were desperate enough.

She was certainly angry enough. But the truth of the matter was that she wasn’t doing anything without Adrien.

So she waited.

Her body demanded rest, but she knew she couldn’t indulge. Not yet. Her arms throbbed from holding up the buckets, and her legs ached from standing after sitting for so long.

But enough wallowing in pain. Now was time for action.

She reached under the door towards Adrien’s cell, her arm fitting a lot easier than when they were first inducted. Perhaps her wasting would be beneficial.

She stood back up, and ran her hands all over the inside of the cell, finding a small camera. She twisted it so it faced away from the door. Then she knelt and got to work.

Very slowly and quietly, she pushed on the bottom of the door, easing it away from her. No sudden movements, or the metal would rattle loudly.

Only a few minutes passed before Adrien groaned from his cell, and shifted, the metal groaning. “My Lady?” He whispered.

She grunted back.

He reached his arm under his door towards her.

For assurance, she patted his hand, but went back to work.

Soon enough, the metal had bent far enough that she could fit her shoulders through. She had to be careful, or else she’d cut herself.

As her feet cleared the threshold, her heart began to pick up in anxiety. She was out. But they weren’t free yet, so she knelt in front of Adrien’s door, and began pulling.

Adrien caught on quickly, and moved the camera just like she had.

This was it. Marinette was banking on the idea that Salo and her men had gotten cocky, and had lowered security for the night.

If not, they were in for a world of pain.

Finally, Adrien was able to crawl out of the little space they had created. He met her eyes in the dim light and smiled at her.

Phase one complete.

[aerialsquid]

Metashipping?

Title: The Men Upstairs Fandom: The LEGO Movie, The LEGO Batman Movie Pairings: Batman/Joker (…sort of), The Man Upstairs/OC Characters: Finn, The Man Upstairs, Batman, Joker, Original Male Character Tags: Meta Fic, Dating, Legos, Metafiction, Symbolism, Parenting, Fatherhood, Businessman Description: Borrowing from the meta reveal at the end of The LEGO Movie, where we find the plot to be a metaphor for a child playing with his father’s Lego sets, this offers a ship-ish look at the meta subtext behind The LEGO Batman Movie. Closet nerd Jack goes on a lukewarm date with a closet LEGO collector, and finds a Batman in dire need of a Robin…and maybe a Joker too.

"-so the main goal is increasing our audience base by 40%. Which let me tell you, is hard when we've got a 30% churn rate, but our senior initiatives team is expanding the database capabilities to-"

Jack made eye contact with the overexpensive coffee maker on the other side of Hank’s overexpensive kitchen. This was he didn't date people in the business. Why in the heck had he decided he should go on a date with someone in the business? Especially one who was just some stranger he’d met on a dating app?

Oh, right. Because he was an idiot who had a hard time saying no.

“Yeah, audience segmentation’s tricky,” Jack said with as much passion as he could manage, which was the same amount of passion he raised for an extra ketchup packet at McDonalds.

“Exactly!” said his date, raising his glass of wine emphatically. “Especially when the sales demographics are changing so fast.”

Jack’s plan had been to get to the bar, have two drinks, and if the guy wasn’t done being dull by two drinks Jack would find an excuse to go wash his hair. Unfortunately, when they got to the bar a sign in the window indicated it was closed due to “Personal Issues, Don’t Ask, But It’s All Her Fault”. Jack’s date had mentioned that his own house was right up the road, and his kids were at tutoring. They could still enjoy a few glasses of fancy nineteen-whatever French wine, and they wouldn’t have to worry about overpaying for imported cheese and French bread.

And Jack was an idiot who had a hard time saying no.

Jack was considering discretely texting his BFF an SOS for GTFO support when the door opened. A kid with a frizzy, curly mop of hair and a solemn expression usually reserved for priests conducting funerals entered, one hand tugging along a younger girl and the other holding a tiny bag of bulky toys.

Hank snapped around, wine sloshing out onto the cheese platter as Jack leaned out of splatter range. “Finn? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Susan!”

Finn looked up at his father with a dulled expression. “She didn’t show up.” The kid sounded as if this sort of thing was business as usual – being left behind, left out, ignored, forgotten. The younger girl took the bag of toys from his hand and wandered off into the depths of the house with it clutched tightly to her chest.

Hank rose to his feet, nearly snapping the stem of the wineglass in his hand. “And how did you get home?”

“Bus.”

“Bus? You went on the bus alone? The school just let you get on the bus alone?” Hank’s voice was rising in pitch with each sentence, heading towards a shriek. It didn’t seem to make a dent in Finn’s dulled demeanor.

“Yeah.” He gave an idle shrug.

“Oh, I am going to murder them!” Jack’s date stormed upstairs, likely to get his phone, leaving Jack forgotten next to the fancy cheese.

Jack and the kid stared at each other.

“You’re…Finn, right?”

“Mhm. He’s pretty mad,” the kid noted. He grabbed a slice of cheese with cracker and stuffed it into his mouth. “Who are you?”

“Jack. I’m a friend of your dad. We were…talking.”

“About business?”

Jack opened his mouth for a yes. Then he looked the kid in the eye as Finn stuffed grapes into his mouth, and considered the sad way that the word ‘business’ had tumbled out of his mouth. Hank had barely talked about his family life but Jack knew enough about Hank’s job to practically do it himself.

“Honestly, I hate business,” he said instead. Jack leaned over, elbows resting on his knees. “What do you like, Finn?”

Finn shrugged. “Stuff. TV shows." When it was clear Jack wasn’t going to move on to another topic, he mumbled, “Legos.”

“Oh. Cool. I love Legos.”

The sound of a very angry middle class white man tumbled back down the stairs. Hank’s exact words were muffled but the intent and emotion behind them was fairly clear.  Jack winced.

“I think your dad’s gonna be busy for a while.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think I should leave?”

“I dunno.”

Jack sucked his teeth and considered the matter. Something about the kid just made him ache. It was that look in his eyes, like this was inevitable. A kid shouldn’t feel like he was an extra load.

Jack knew that much from experience.

“Hey, Finn? You want to show me your Legos?”

“Wwwwwwow. When you said Legos, I didn’t think you meant you were running an entire Lego store out of your basement.”

“Dad collects them,” Finn said. “And builds them. He’s got all the sets. He likes to build the sets.”

Jack’s jaw hung open as he wandered the basement, staring at models of Isengard and the Sears Tower that were almost as tall as he was. The figures could have been shop models for how perfectly they were built, each Stormtrooper storming the plains of Hoth and pirate swinging across the ratlines of the Black Pearl in perfect position. “Your dad collects enough Legos to build a literal house and he had me talking about demographic segmentation?” That asshole.

Jack followed Finn around as Finn named off the sets in regimented order. The constructs were built box-picture-perfect but each had some endearing little quirk to it. Firefighters were trying to get a kitten down from the Eiffel Tower. Gremlins had invaded Hogwarts and built a crude airplane on the parapets so they could sit on its wings.

“He used to keep them to himself, but now we play together sometimes. When he’s not doing business.” Finn said the word business like it was a slur, which was something Jack could get behind.

“I love it. This is amazing. Oh my god, is that a Batman set? That’s huge!”

“That’s Arkham Asylum. It’s from a set. This is Wayne Manor, I built this one, and the Batcave one.”  Finn pointed to an immense house construct.  It was furnished with at least two dozen rooms, each with small chairs and tables or cute little plastic toilets. On the shelf below it was what was indeed the Batcave, full of at least a dozen Bat-appended vehicles.

“Have I mentioned I’m a huge Batman fan? Huge.” First crush huge, but he wasn’t going to say that in front of the nine-year-old.

“Really?” Finn gave Jack a once-over. Jack realized what an absolute square he must look like, wearing his finest business casual and looking as professionally average as possible. It made him regret everything he was doing with his life.

“You want my cred? I got cred.” Jack whipped his phone out and swiped through Facebook, back through the carefully curated archive of incredibly dull, employer-safe vacation and brunch imagery. He stopped on a specific photo and held it up, gloating.

“This was me last year at Halloween.” he said, pointing to the central figure in a generic ‘badly lit people at table in bar with beers and arms around each other but not in a sexy way’ shot. “Check out what I’m wearing.”

Finn leaned in to look at the picture, then giggled. “You have Batman pajamas?” he squeaked, one hand over his mouth.

“Batman pajamas with cowl.” More of a onesie, really. There’d been a sale at ThinkGeek.

The first real smile Jack had seen on Finn for more than a few moments began to creep to the surface. Upstairs he could still hear the faintest of yelling—if Hank was the kind of guy Jack thought he was, he’d be there a while and ask to speak to at least two managers. Jack’s eyes roamed the table until he found the airport set (with a little TSA and metal detector, wtf).

“So now I’m going to need you to show me your Batman cred. Trivia time. What if, uh….so what if there was a plane coming into Gotham city that was full of bombs, and explosives.” He leaned over to the ‘Old West Gold Mine’ set and grabbed a pile of TNT. Finn looked mildly concerned as Jack distributed the explosives around the plane like salt on pasta.

“Aaaaand it got taken over by ninjas!” Jack ran to the Samurai set and plucked up fistfuls of ninjas. Finn’s expression went from concerned to alarmed.

“You’re mixing up the sets…”

“It’s fine, I’ll put them back later.” Jack was on a roll now. He grinned eagerly, distributing the ninjas on top of the plane and walking a few of them inside. He looked over his shoulder and eyed Arkham Asylum. “They’re toys, right? What’s the point if we’re not playing with them?”

Damnit, he was going to entertain this small child if it killed him.

“—and I always come to work with a smile!!!!”

Jack grinned wide, wiggling the tiny Joker menacingly between his fingers. The little pilot cap balanced on the molded hair fell off and he quickly balanced it back on top of one tiny green spike.

Finn was silent, staring at him from the other side of the table. The little pilot figure that Jack had forced into his hand hung loose between his fingers. Jack could feel his pulse pounding in his throat. “You should be terrified,” he prompted.

Finn offered another of the apathetic shrugs that were starting to be cheese graters on Jack’s soul. “Why?”

Jack pitched his voice high again. “Because! I will be taking over the city!” he made the little Joker dance back and forth.”

“Hmmm.” Finn’s eyes roamed around the model city as he let out a noise of unclear emotion response.

“What? I mean it!” The high pitch in his voice grew higher and just a shred more desperate. He felt like someone trying frantically to start their car by turning the key again and again, each roar of the engine even more subdued and upsetting.

The moment of ‘hmmmmmmmm ‘ stretched out again, until finally Finn looked up, humor dancing in his eyes, “Batman will stop you.”

Yes!!!!

Jack blew a gleeful raspberry. “Pffft!”

“He always stops you.” Finn insisted.

“No, he doesn’t!”

“Yes, he does.”

“No he doesn’t!”

“Like that time with the two boats?

“Your dad let you watch—I mean, this is better than the two boats!” Finn was still looking up in skepticism. Jack wracked his brain, trying to yank in what little shreds of his improv classes hadn’t been violently repressed by his mind. “Tonight is going to be different! Tonight is my greatest plan yet! And trust me, Batman’s never gonna see it coming.”

“Like that time with the parade and the Prince music?”

“Hey, quiet! Your city is under attack by Gotham’s greatest criminal masterminds! Including...”

Jack scrambled for the Arkham Asylum set, ripping tiny plastic figures off their pedestals and out of their cells.

“Riddler! Scarecrow! Bane!” He snapped the characters down to the table one by one, their arms upraised in defiance of the law and common decency. “Two-Face! Catwoman! And let's not forget Clayface! Poison Ivy! Mr. Freeze! Penguin!”

Jack dove into the plastic bin of spare minifigures and started yanking out random bodies, slapping capes and hats onto scowling figures and setting them down on the table one by one.

“Crazy Quilt! Eraser! Mime! Tarantula! King Tut! Orca! Killer Moth! March Hare! Zodiac Master! Gentleman Ghost! Clock King! Calendar Man! Kite Man! Catman! Zebra-man! Annnnnnd the Condiment King!”

He paused, panting as he set the last little caped figure on the platform, tapping a tiny red bottle into its hand. A row of hastily cobbled second-stringers stretched out down the length of the table, all glaring menacingly towards the perfectly constructed cityscape.

Finn raised an eyebrow at him. “… Okay, are you making some of these up?

“Nope, they’re all real!” Jack winked. “Probably worth a Google.”

Hank came down the stairs just as Batman was delivering t-shirts to the orphanage, and stayed silent until the Batmobile slid elegantly into the Wayne Manor and Batcave sets.

“What are you doing?”

Both Finn and Hank froze, their expressions of childish guilt almost identical.

“We’ll put it back, Dad,” Finn mumbled.

“We just saved Gotham City anyway, so I think this episode’s wrapped up.” Jack sat back on his knees, disconnecting the Joker from his little balloon harness. Finn was already collecting up the ninjas and running away to quickly put them back into position.

“Well. I’m glad you have that handled,” said Hank, his expression carefully free of every emotion, including that of apathy, which on reflection was kinda impressive.

Jack rolled the airplane back to its landing pad next to its little government-empowered metal-detecting autocrats.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this? Heck, why isn’t this the first thing in your dating profile?”

“Some people think toy collecting’s a little childish.”

“Some people can suck my Loot Box Exclusive Batarang Multi-tool. Seriously. This is great.” He began stripping the plane of tiny bombs.

“Hey, Hank? Why don’t you have a Dick?”

Jack’s date stopped, jaw working as he tried to muster up a reply. Jack’s penny dropped and he rushed in with “A Dick Grayson! A Robin! Red shirt, yellow cape, green tights. Sorry. Finn says you have about fifteen different Batmans but there’s no Robins.”

Hank blinked. “Oh. I think the dog ate it. I haven’t replaced it, I haven’t been into the media tie-in sets for a while.”

“You should get one. Actually, I will buy you one if I have to.”

“Uh. Why?”

“Batman’s got all this crap but he hasn’t got a family. I had to dig the Alfred out of the back of the Wayne Manor set. Batman needs people to back him up, always has. And Robin’s his son. I mean he’s adopted, or at least the Dick Grayson one’s adopted, and they’ve got this really tight bond, and I feel like Finn would really relate to that.”

“You sure you’re not getting a little too into this?”

“It’s not me who’s getting into it. I mean, not just me.” Jack looked over his shoulder at Finn, who was cleaning up the discarded piles of Batvillains and neatly placing them back into Arkham. “It’s him. Kids work out stuff through play, and his idea of a strong person isn’t one that needs to deal with sidekicks. His Batman doesn’t need a family, and he definitely doesn’t do ships.”

“Ships?”

“Relationships. Connections. He’s not even that into the Joker and lemme tell you, every good Batman has some twisted fixation on Joker. This the kind of Batman you get in the Nolan movies where he’s emotionally stunted, not the kind that winds up opening up to people like in some of the better comics. I’m not sure that’s…”

Jack abruptly stopped the word fountain flowing from his mouth, biting down hard on his thin lip to keep the words inside. His gaze fell away as the weight of adulthood abruptly fell down on his shoulders. Here he was, a grown man with a professional job, messing around in some other guy’s basement with his Lego models like he was one of Finn’s colleagues here for pretend play and video games after elementary school, talking his head off about the significance of superheroes having sidekicks.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m a huge dork.”

“No. It’s, um.” Hank peeked over Jack’s shoulder. “Hey, Finn? We’ll clean this up, why don’t you go start your homework?”

“Okay, Dad.”

Hank lowered his voice once Finn had scrambled up the stairs. “It’s hard to get him out of his shell with other people,” he whispered. “He’s up in his head so much of the time, and he’s so shy with other kids. I’ve never seen him just click with someone like that. I’ve been trying to play with him more but I can never seem to get it right.” He reached over and readjusted the angle of the airplane, almost looking guilty for needing to do so. “I don’t think I’m on his level. I spend so much time around people hyperfocused on the profit line that I forget how to be a kid.”

“You’re saying I’m immature?”

Hank smiled. He reached out to take the Joker from Jack’s hand, and his fingers lingered a few moments longer than necessary against Jack’s skin. “I’m saying that’s not the worst thing in the world for me right now.”

[yagumokyoji]

i have an au in mind where zero’s fight with sigma doesn’t end the way it did in canon, and zero remains a terrifying villain with all the world-destroying potential he was built to have. and then, because my gay ass can’t help but waste the potential of such an au, he and x go enemies to lovers. however, since the odds of me ever actually finishing a full-plot fic for it are 1 in 1000, i think i’m okay posting the various out of context, out of order scenes i write for it here

here’s one.

Consciousness blurred back in, slowly, as though with great effort.  As though he had been at the bottom of a deep, dark, well, for a very long time.

There was a voice in his ears.  He opened his eyes, saw Dr. Cain standing above him, mouth moving -  but he couldn't understand anything.  It was nothing more than muffled garble, like hearing something from another room.

Fear set in, then turned to into a formless panic.  He opened his mouth and a strange string of noise came out; he had the feeling he was supposed to be giving it some sort of shape, but what...

Then there was a sensation like resurfacing, something breaking through into clear air, and he could hear properly again.  Dr. Cain was saying, "X, can you understand me?  Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I do now," said X.  "What was that?"

Dr. Cain ignored the question.  “Can you sit up?”

His limbs wouldn’t obey him for a moment, then they did.  “Yes.”

“All right.  Walk to the door and back for me.”

He did so, slipping off the repair table and making his difficult way to the door of the lab.  Walking was a struggle, at first, but as his body remembered how to move it was as though he’d been ice-frozen and was now thawing.  “Good,” said Dr. Cain.  “All in order, I think.”

X sat gingerly back down on the repair table, his mind slowly clearing enough for a question to form out of the tangle of confusion.  “What happened?  Shouldn’t I be dead?”  Zero had shot him in the head, point-blank… that should have killed him.  There should have been no escaping that.

“You should,” said Dr. Cain wearily.  “But you were very lucky.  The shot passed through at such an angle that it only took out your language and movement centers, which can be replaced, and a corner of your memory bank that stores information categorized insignificant.  A few degrees of difference and there’d be no bringing you back.”  He stroked his beard, troubled.  “You’re very lucky to be alive.”

X considered that.  There seemed to be a chill against his back, as though death had been close enough to brush against him.  “I am.”  He hesitated.  “Thank you for repairing me.”

“You don’t have to thank me.  I have a duty to you and to humanity to ensure that you’re working properly.”  Dr. Cain’s gaze was distant; a frown hovered on his face.  At length he said, “X…”

X tensed at his tone.  “What?”

“The shot was fired at point-blank range,” said Dr. Cain.  “All Maverick Hunters are under strict orders not to approach Zero unless absolutely necessary.  What happened?”

X’s gut tightened, and his hands knotted together.  There were any number of things he could say - He snuck up on me… I thought he was unconscious… A strut gave way and I fell into his range…

“I kissed him,” he said.

Dr. Cain’s face went wide with shock.  “You… you kissed him?”

“I did.”

“Well… well I’ll be.” Dr. Cain sat down, as though his legs had given out.  “You really…”

“On the mouth,” confirmed X miserably.  “And then he shot me.”

The white-light shock slowly gave way to something quieter - worry, exasperation, and sympathy all melted together.  “Oh, X,” sighed Dr. Cain, “oh, X.”

X stared down at his hands, tightly knotted in his lap.  His throat felt tight.

“You’re so young,” said Dr. Cain.  X opened his mouth to point out that he was by far the oldest of his kind, but Dr. Cain held up a hand.  “You have a much more complex development process to go through than the other reploids, and you’re still nowhere near done with it.  Take it from this old man who’s nearing the end of his days… robot or not, you’re very young.”

There was nothing X could say to that.

“I know it must be hard for you,” said Dr. Cain gently.  “Being the only true specimen like you, with your creator long dead.  I know a little of how lonely and lost you are.  And I know Zero must be feeling some way similar.”

“Right,” said X, through the lump in his throat, “and that was why -”

“But regardless of how he feels,” persisted Dr. Cain, “he’s highly dangerous.  I can understand that you’re drawn to him, that you sympathize with him, and I truly admire your depth of empathy for it.  But you can’t let that override your sense of self-preservation, or for that matter your duties as a protector of humanity.  You reached out to him, and he nearly killed you.”

He kissed me back first.  X’s hands balled into fists; some part of him was determined not to admit to this, not to share this one part of what had happened in that warehouse.  He kissed me back fierce and desperate like the rest of him, holding onto me as though he was just as lonely as I am, as though we were the only two things in this world that could possibly fit together, and then he pushed me away as though something inside of him was tearing in two and -

“I understand.”  His vision was blurring now, his voice thick.

“Oh, X,” sighed Dr. Cain again, and stood up.  “Do you want a hug?”

X nodded.  Dr. Cain wrapped his arms around him, and X leaned into the embrace of the closest thing he had to a father and returned the hug.  Humans were so soft.

“Can’t we do anything to help him?” he asked, his voice muffled into Dr. Cain’s shoulder, and Dr. Cain sighed and pulled away just enough to meet his eyes.

“It’s doubtful,” he said.  “There might be ways… but the priority will always be to contain and neutralize the threat he poses, and to stop him from killing more people than he already has.  With our hands full with that, trying to make him feel better takes quite a backseat, you understand.”

X understood all too well, and he also understood that Zero’s threat level was by now ramped up to red.  Lethal force recommended.  Saving the world from him would mean they’d kill him, just flat-out kill him, and he’d never have a chance to, to -

He wiped at his eyes and found his hands wet.

“Your capacity for love and compassion is infinitely admirable,” said Dr. Cain sympathetically, and handed him a tissue.  “But at times like this I worry it hurts you more than it helps you.  Try to focus on all the lives that are in the balance.  Those matter more than Zero’s feelings, certainly.”

It made sense.  It made all too much sense.

He kissed me back and there was longing in it.

reblogs and feedback appreciated as always!

[rey-skywalkin-away]

Kanera Fix-It Fic Chapter 3

Or, alternatively known as: “Guys, Help Me Find a Title! I’m Terrible With Titles!”

Sorry this is a few days late, but life got in the way. It’s just under 7300 words, though, so that should help!

Even though I’ve posted my thoughts on the finale elsewhere, I just wanted to say that, even though I’m pleased overall with the finale, I will finish this fic to its completion, with the plot I planned out from the beginning. Kanan still lives in my world, dammit! But will I incorporate anything from the finale into my work?? You’ll have to find out and see!

Thanks for the likes and reblogs! Enjoy!

Three Months Later

--------------------------------

           Two-hundred forty seconds…

           The tunnel was long and cramped, and Kanan’s wide shoulders scraped against the uneven walls as he crawled forward on his belly. Ezra was ahead, smaller and faster, and flecks of dirt churned up by his boots kept spattering against Kanan’s face.

           Two-hundred seconds…

           Kanan felt the tunnel would never end, and he was in too much turmoil to reach ahead with the Force and feel how much further they still had to go. So he crawled, and squirmed, and tried to keep up with Ezra as they desperately moved to clear the area…

           One-hundred eighty seconds…

           “Kanan, stop,” Ezra hissed. Kanan obeyed, and he heard Ezra scrabbling against the rough floor of their tunnel. “Here, give me your hand. I’ll help you up.” Kanan found Ezra’s hand and managed to pull himself out of the narrow hole.

           One-hundred twenty seconds…

           Cool twilight air whipped across Kanan’s face as he and Ezra covered their tunnel with an old crate, then slunk around boxes of bombs, heading towards the fence at the border of the munitions storage facility. They’d meant to dig past the facility itself, but there’d hadn’t been enough time. Beyond the fence, he could hear wind rustling thick leaves, as well as the old, dry creaking of heavy tree limbs. The forest. We’re right where we’re supposed to be. But he didn’t dwell on that for long as his fingers clung to the metal links of the fence and they began to climb.

           Sixty seconds…

           “Is there any wire on top of the fence?” Kanan hissed.

           “No,” Ezra said, panting from the climb. The fence was tall, and electrified at one point, but Sabine had disabled the electricity an hour ago. Hopefully it stays that way long enough for us to clear it.

           Kanan’s hands met empty air as he reached the top of the fence, and he swung a leg over the fence top, then began his descent down. He didn’t dare to jump, not when he was too stressed to calculate the distance from the bottom. Hurry, hurry, not much time left. Forty seconds? Thirty? He’d forgotten where he was in his internal count, as he braced for the fear and danger that was sure to follow…

           And the heat of the explosion, hundreds of meters away, still seared Kanan’s face as he and Ezra were knocked off the fence and landed on the forest floor, the air knocked out of their lungs…

           As Hera screamed his name, over and over again, while Ezra screamed at Sabine to go, go, before the ignited fuel reached their ship…

           Kanan struggled to breathe, digging his fingers into the loamy dirt, scrabbling to find purchase to pull himself up. Ezra was gasping for air somewhere to his right: harsh, quick breaths. “Ezra, get up,” Kanan wheezed. He somehow got to his knees and found Ezra’s shoulder. “Come on, we need to go, they’re coming!”

           “What—“

           But Kanan hauled Ezra to his feet and pushed him forward. “No time. Can’t you hear them? We have to get out of here.” Why couldn’t Ezra hear them coming?

           A voice, a few inches from where they were hidden: “Styles to Grey: We lost him.”

           He and Ezra were in the clear for the moment, but it wouldn’t last. They ran up the hill, and Kanan threw out his hands as a secondary explosion rocked the ground and flung them forward…

           As the metal dome bubbled and boiled beneath his feet…

           As someone knocked his lightsaber out of his hands and shoved him into the dirt…

           Kanan grabbed Ezra by the back of his shirt and pulled him up. “Go, go!”

           They ran down the other side of the hill, Ezra holding onto Kanan’s sleeve and keeping him from running face-first into any trees in their path. Kanan just ran forward, heedless of where he was going, following Ezra’s direction…

           “Caleb, we cannot win this battle…you must run.”

           “Keep searching. Billaba’s dead. I’ll put the whole battalion on the hunt for the kid.”

           Hera, running towards him, screaming his name, and him holding her back…

           And coughing, mouth half-full with soil, two fingers tugging on his Padawan braid… “Caleb Dume, I found you!”

                       And Kanan was flung out of his nightmares when he tripped over the edge of a bank and landed on his knees in…sand, for some reason. Wet, soggy sand and…running water. A trickle, only a few inches deep. A stream.

           A whoosh of air as Ezra landed next to him, panting loudly in Kanan’s ear. “I told you…to…stop…awhile back…” He wheezed.

           Kanan blinked. “You did?”

           “Yeah. You just kept…” Ezra coughed again. “Kept going.” A splash…gurgling now mixed with his gasping…Ezra drinking out of the stream. Kanan followed his lead and felt for water untainted by churned-up sand. He cupped a mouthful in his hands and drank deep; it was cold and crisp, and he found he was desperately thirsty after their flight. He stuck his head in the water, drank until he needed air, and then washed the dirt off his face.

           Ezra had also finished drinking by the time he was done. “We’re about…half a kilometer from Point A,” Ezra said.

           “Really? We ran that far?” Six-and-a-half kilometers?

           “Yeah. I couldn’t stop you. You just kept…Kanan, there wasn’t anyone chasing us.”

           Kanan leaned back and sat on the edge of the running water. “Are you sure? I could’ve sworn…”

           “No, I’m sure. No one noticed we got out. They were talking about hearing us...dying in the fire. They didn’t know that we weren’t troopers, so they were trying to get in there to save us.”

           All according to plan. Before they’d arrived to blow up the munitions plant, he and Ezra had recorded themselves screaming in absolute agony. Then, they’d planted the recording devices at their last known location, near the storage room for blaster charges. If the devices weren’t immediately destroyed in the resulting explosions, they would’ve gone off, and anyone nearby would’ve thought they died, their bodies completely cremated in the fire. Perfect.

           “Kanan…who was the girl you were running from?”

           “Huh?”

           Ezra’s feet shifted in the wet sand. Kanan heard some little amphibious creature plop into the water a few meters up the stream. “You were saying ‘she’ was coming, right at the end. Who were you running from? Why were you running from her?”

           “I don’t…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

           “Are you sure?”

           “Caleb Dume, I found you!”

           Kanan shook his head. “Let’s just get out of the water and reach Point A. The temperature’s dropping, just like the weather forecast said, and we shouldn’t be in wet clothes for much longer.”

           Ezra sighed, but climbed out of the creek bed and helped Kanan out. They walked along its edge for only fifteen minutes, but by the time they reached their destination, a rock-shelter that opened from an outcropping of stone on the edge of the forest, they were already shivering. Thankfully, the bags of supplies they’d left three days earlier were still intact, and the rock-shelter was mostly dry. Ezra and Kanan quickly changed out of their wet clothes and set them out to dry at the front of the shelter, weighted down by rocks. Still, they couldn’t control their shivering, especially since the temperature kept dropping.

           Before they did anything else, however, Ezra dug around in the packs and found their private communicator, one that was only capable of emitting coded signals. Ezra clicked it twice, paused, then clicked it three more times: their all-clear signal. They both breathed a sigh of relief when the signal was repeated back, with an added two clicks at the end. Good, they know we’re alive and everything is all-clear.

           But now, warmth and food were their top priorities. “We gathered some wood right out outside of the shelter when we dropped off the supplies. It should still be dry.” Kanan pulled blankets and sleeping pallets out of their packs. “I’ll get out food and beds made up if you get a fire started.”

           “Are you sure? We could always just have our blankets.”

           Why? Are you afraid I’ll lose my mind again if I’m around a few flames? It probably was a concern, but Kanan felt much more in control than he had an hour ago. “We could easily get frostbite or die of hypothermia. Let’s just…make a fire.”

           Kanan set up their sleeping pallets towards the back of the shelter, well away from where he could hear Ezra clunking logs together and struggling with a lighter. Eventually, Kanan wrinkled his nose and shivered when he smelled the sour scent of fuel, and heard small crackles as Ezra finally lit the kindling. Kanan went back to the packs and felt around for their food pouches. “What’ll it be for dinner? We’ve got standard rations, and some pouches of vegetables and meat that we could heat up over the fire.”

           “I’m not actually that hungry, for some reason.”

           Kanan was afraid of that. He’s hiding it a lot better than me, but he’s in shock, too. Kanan leaned forward and patted Ezra’s shoulder. The kid was still shivering, even though he’d been around the heat of the fire for a few minutes. Kanan pulled him in for a hug, and held him for a long minute. Ezra clung to Kanan, still shaking, before he finally pulled away. “I’ll be fine, Kanan, I swear. I just need to sleep this off.”

           “We need to eat something before we bunk down, even if it’s just a couple ration sticks, especially after all that running.”

           Ezra sighed. “Rations sticks, then, I guess. I don’t think I could keep down anything else.”

           They both sat as far away from the fire as they could while still getting some warmth, nibbling on the dry, tasteless ration sticks. Kanan thought about reaching out to Hera with the Force, but he didn’t want to alarm her right now, since he was so out of balance. But at least she knows we’re okay. He prayed that she would be able to sleep easy tonight, even if they wouldn’t.

           “So…can you tell me who it was you were running from?” Ezra finally asked, crumpling up the paper covering from his ration stick. There was a soft whumpf as it caught fire.

           “I wish I knew. I was remembering…a lot of different things. The fuel depot, right after my Master was killed during Order 66...hiding from the clones hunting me down…” And right after…the person knocking me into the dirt. Who swatted away my lightsaber. Who knew my name. Who was that? Was it a female? She must be, from what Ezra was saying, but I can’t remember what her voice sounded like. Kanan rubbed the scars around his eyes, then moved his hands over the rest of his face. No burns or other injuries, except for a small scrape on his chin. “It’s a good thing I pulled out of the fight when I did. The fuel depot…it did something to me. I don’t know exactly.” He didn’t know what condition to call it. Shell-shock? Trauma? A therapist would know how to diagnose me, but good luck getting one of those. “A little break…will be good.”

           Kanan could imagine how Ezra was sitting: with his arms wrapped around his legs, his head resting on his knees. Just like the fourteen-year-old boy they’d found living alone on Lothal. Seems like a lifetime ago. “I hope they’re not worrying about us too much, on the Ghost,” Ezra said.

           Kanan didn’t want to think about Hera worrying over him, even though it was probably happening. “We sent out the signal and got a response. Everything’s fine. We’ll just have to sit tight for the next few days, until Zeb swings by in the Phantom to pick us up.”

           Ezra let out a little whoosh of air and flopped back against his pallet. “I’m kinda looking forward to no chores for the next couple of days…but it’s gonna get boring really fast. I completely forgot to pack anything for us to do—are we going to go over lightsaber forms? Or meditate?”

           “No, it’s too risky to do combat training. Someone might see us. But I did bring some important reading material for us to study.” Kanan reached over and found the datapad in his pack, then passed it to Ezra. “Go on, have a look.”

           Ezra booted up the datapad. “How To Care For Your Newborn?”

           “Hera downloaded it and we’ve been going over it before we go to bed each night. We should start reading it, too.”

           “You mean I’ll be reading it. But yeah, sounds good. Are we starting tonight?”

           Kanan shook his head. “It’s too late. Let’s get some sleep and start fresh in the morning.”

           Kanan wrapped himself in his blanket as Ezra threw a few logs onto the fire and crawled onto his own pallet. Kanan listened for Ezra’s breath to become slow and regular, but it didn’t happen. Looks like it’s going to be a sleepless night for both of us. Kanan sighed, then got up off his pallet and felt along the edge of the rock shelter, until he was at the entrance. The wind was still icy, but he wasn’t chilled anymore, so he endured it as he sat down to meditate.

           The Jedi would’ve disapproved of how Kanan found his balance and center of peace these days, but he didn’t exactly care anymore. He’d grown past the feelings of guilt he should’ve had for his familial love for the Ghost crew, the romantic love he felt for Hera, the excitement and joy he felt for the upcoming birth of his child. Those emotions swirled in him, reassuring him and helping him find harmony within his soul. Zeb finding out how much I like Pyollian cakes and baking me a whole tray before I left…I bet there are one or two packed away in my bag…Sabine hugging me before I left…these days, I always forget how small she is until she hugs me…she has such a large presence in the Force...Ezra trying to sneak baby clothes into his pack…he must’ve been saving his spare credits for weeks to afford all that I found…good memories, yes, but they were all bittersweet, now that he and Ezra were leaving. But that’s the way of the universe. You must take the good with the bad.

           But there was one completely joyful memory that came to Kanan, unbidden, that calmed him almost immediately…

           “Kanan, Kanan wake up.”

           He jolted into consciousness and immediately felt for Hera, who was next to him, squeezed close in their narrow bunk. “What’s wrong?”

           “It’s the baby—“

           “What’s wrong with it?” He leapt out of bed to put on pants and go find EW-6, who was in shutdown mode in the main living area.

           “Nothing, nothing, don’t be afraid. It’s just that…it’s moving!” Hera’s voice was filled with a giddy joy he hadn’t heard in years. “Oh, Kanan, I can’t even describe it. Come here. Feel before it stops…”

           He relaxed and took several deep breaths to calm his racing heart, then sat back down on the edge of the bed. He reached out and pressed a hand against the naked bulge of her lower torso…and almost jerked his hand away when he felt something flutter under her skin.

           “Did you feel it?”

           “Yeah, I…” He let out a breath. “It’s incredible. I didn’t expect it to feel like that at all.” Kanan rubbed his hand in small circles on Hera’s belly as the fluttering continued. Little feet? Little hands? What am I touching? “How does it feel on your end?”

           “I told you, I can barely describe it. But, I can tell that as it gets bigger, it’s going to get annoying, fast. But right now? While it’s still small? I love it.” Hera yawned and laid back down in bed. “I’m sorry I woke you up. It’s just a little thing, but…”

           “Don’t be. I don’t mind. At all.” Kanan wrapped one arm around her, ignoring that the limb would be numb soon, and left his right hand pressed against her belly. Hera laid one of her hands on top of his, and they fell asleep together, feeling their child moving every now and again…

                       Kanan felt that fluttering against his right palm as he meditated, a phantom touch several days old that still flickered like an electric wire, up through his hand and into his arm, all the way to his heart. The sound of Ezra finally falling asleep in the rock shelter behind him, the twinge of Sabine’s ear crushed against his chest as she hugged him goodbye, the feel of Zeb clasping his shoulder and promising to look after the crew, Hera’s lips pressed against his own, and the baby moving under his hand. Something comforted each of his remaining senses, and Kanan finally relaxed, at peace. He could tell it was much later in the night when he returned to the fire, which was hot coals compared to licking, crackling flames, but Kanan didn’t bother to add any more logs. He just went to check that Ezra was well-covered as he slept, then collapsed into his own cot, only the tip of his nose poking out from under his blanket as he drifted off.

           “Why were you running from her?”

           And because he was in the realm between alertness and deep sleep, he didn’t remember the answer when it finally came to him:

           Because those weren’t fingers tugging on my Padawan braid…

                       They were claws.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Four days later

                       Hera paced back and forth in front of her desk. “Karabast, he’s normally never late to answer my calls.”

           “Hera, I’m sure he’ll answer soon.”

           The baby twitched and lurched, pressing up against the wall of her stomach, and Hera stopped pacing. She rubbed her belly in slow, soothing motions, as Kanan had done, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling of unease coursing through her body. I hope, if the baby is Force-sensitive, that it can’t feel all my negativity right now. Or is it just kicking because I stress-ate an entire jar of pickles this morning? Please be the pickles…She wished Kanan were here to tell her the answer, or to at least feel around with the Force and see what was making the baby kick so much today. But it’s just going to be you and me trying to figure this out, dearest. We’ll manage together for right now, without Daddy’s magic powers. How does that sound? Hera took a deep breath and tried to relax. Everything’s fine. Zeb is taking Kanan and Ezra to the home we found, they’re safe, and Father will answer any minute now. There’s nothing to worry about. Hera still tapped her fingers on the edge of her desk. “Can you check over the comm again? Is there a faulty wire preventing the calls from going through?”

           Sabine went behind the desk and checked the comm setup. “The power supply and connection are just fine. Your dad’s probably just busy doing some recon right now.”

           “He’d better be. Of all the times for him to not answer…”

           Chopper grumbled as he dodged out of the way of EW-6, who was hovering nearby, automatically activated by Hera’s stress levels. “Spectre-Two, have you been taking the anti-anxiety medication I prescribed to you?” EW-6 chirped.

           “Yes, I have, but this is a situation that’s probably beyond whatever’s in those pills you gave me.”

           “Spectre-Two, please extend your arm for me.”

           Hera sighed, but obeyed. It was hard to be annoyed with the midwife droid for long, since it had such a calming, but optimistic tone and personality, but the constant medical attention was really starting to wear Hera out, even though she knew it was for the baby’s sake.

           EW-6 pressed one of her heated, padded arms against the underside of Hera’s wrist, then chirped disapprovingly. “Your heart rate and blood pressure are above recommended levels. I would suggest a sedative and a few hours of sleep to allow you to calm down—“

           “—Which isn’t going to happen—“

           “So may I suggest removing yourself from this stressful situation, or perhaps a hot drink and something sweet to restore your blood sugar levels?”

           Sabine stood up. “I’ll get you some tea and a cake, Hera.”

           “Thank you. I’m going to stay here and wait to see if Father calls.”

           Sabine nodded, and EW-6 anxiously followed her, calling out: “Nothing with more than 10% of her daily recommended limit of saturated fat per serving!”

           “No way, it’s going to be the fattiest cake she’s ever eaten! We had to make them with half a tub of lard and a pound of sugar! And I’m bringing her six of them!”

           “Don’t you dare!”

           Hera rolled her eyes and shut the door to her cabin, but couldn’t help but smile. “You know, if Sabine didn’t have someone whose buttons she could press, I think she’d go insane. She’s gotten too used to having Ezra and Zeb around.”

           Chopper shrugged his metal arms.

           “Well, at least she’s not bothering you.”

           “Bwap-bwap,” Chopper said, bobbing a little up-and-down in assent.

           The comm suddenly blinked, and Hera whipped around. She sat down at the edge of her desk and nervously adjusted her pilot’s cap. “Don’t say anything,” Hera whispered to Chopper. “It might not be my father.” She took a deep breath, then opened the comm channel.

           Cham Syndulla’s war-worn face appeared on the holo-call. “Hera, I received your transmission,” he said slowly, deliberately.

           “Yes. It was only four days ago.”

           “I am sorry to hear about Kanan and Ezra. I know how much you cared for the boy, and how…close you were to Kanan.”

           Well, he’d picked up on that part at least. What gave it away? Kanan bowing and tripping over his own feet the first time they met? “Thank you, Father.”

           “How are you coping with your loss?”

           “Things…could be better.” At least they weren’t dead. At least they were setting up a home with Zeb and Rex. At least Kanan will get to meet our child in four months. Kanan and Ezra’s departure was still weighing heavily on Hera, but things could be worse. Far worse. “There’s…something else that I need to tell you.”

           “What is it?”

           Hera closed her eyes, swallowed, and stood up. She wasn’t wearing her full pilot overalls, only a tight-fitting brown shirt and pair of pants, which did nothing to hide her bump. She remained standing, her eyes still tightly closed. What would she see when she opened them? Her father’s hatred for Kanan, for getting his daughter pregnant? His disgust, that she’d allowed a human to do this to her? Happiness, now that he was getting a new member to the family after so many losses over the years? Hera didn’t know, and she was afraid of her father’s reaction. Be strong. She opened her eyes…

           And saw defeat written in every line on her father’s face, in the slump of his shoulders. Defeat she’d never seen before, not when her mother and brother died, not when they lost yet another stronghold to Imperial control…nothing like what she was seeing now. “Oh Hera…”

           By the stars, he looks like he might cry. “Kanan brought our kalikori back from Imperial hands before he…before he died. It looks like we’re going to add a new member to it.”

           “I would thank him for that…if he were still alive.”

           But not for getting me pregnant, I bet. “Father, I know you might be busy…but could you come rendezvous with the Ghost, at a set of coordinates I’ll send to you? I…want to see you.”

           “Yes, of course. I’ll come right away.”

           “And could you bring some food from home? Ingredients for rycrit stew? And some munch-fungus bread?”

           “Whatever you want, I’ll bring it.”

           “Thank you. Sending the coordinates now.”

           “Received. I will be there within twenty-four standard hours…and-we-shall-talk-about-you-coming-home-to-Ryloth-when-I-arrive-see-you-soon-“ The transmission ended abruptly, and Cham Syndulla’s face disappeared.

           Hera groaned and flopped back against her seat. “Stang, I knew he’d say something like that. And he didn’t even wait for me to answer!”

           Chopper patted her knee with one of his metal arms. There was a knock at the door, and Sabine came in with a serving tray full of Zeb’s Pyollian cakes, plates, and tea, quickly entering and shutting the door with one elbow as she fended off EW-6.

           “EW-6, it’s fine, I’m only having one,” Hera called, as she stuffed one cake into her mouth, grabbed two more and put them on a plate, then poured herself a cup of steaming hot, fragrant tea.

           “That bad, huh?” Sabine said, as she sat down and fixed her own plate.

           “Mmhmm—“ Hera painfully swallowed the sticky, half-chewed cake. “I think I aged my father by a good twenty years when I delivered the news.”

           “What’d he say?”

           “…Not a lot. But, I think he feels sorry for me. As far as he knows, I’m pretty far into my first pregnancy, I lost the love of my life and the father of my child four days ago, and I’m stuck on a ship in the middle of nowhere. Even without the war, every parent’s worst nightmare for their kid.” Probably reminds him of what he went through when he lost my mother.

           Sabine winced as she burned her tongue on her hot tea. “So you didn’t tell him that Kanan and Ezra are alive?”

           “No, I’ll tell him the truth when he gets here in twenty-four hours. I didn’t want to say anything over the comm channel, even though it’s encrypted. If the baby disappears and I’m still fighting, anyone who might’ve seen that transmission will think that the baby’s going to my father on Ryloth.”

           “And would that be such a bad thing?”

           Hera paused mid-bite into her second cake. “What exactly are you saying?”

           “I just…” Sabine looked away. “Do you think it’s a good idea to let Kanan and Ezra raise the baby?”

           Hera scowled. “Why? Because Kanan’s blind and Ezra’s still very young?”

           “Yeah, Ezra’s still young, but it’s not because Kanan’s blind…it’s because he has a trauma disorder. PTSD or shell-shock or, or something.”

           “I have noticed that, Sabine, but Kanan’s mostly jumpy around fire. If Ezra does the cooking for the house, we should be fine…”

           Sabine leaned forward in her seat. “Hera, did Zeb at all tell you how Kanan was acting after he and Ezra faked their deaths?”

           Hera wiped her sticky fingers off on a napkin. “No. He didn’t.” What have you all been keeping from me?

           “Zeb said that Ezra told him that…Kanan…absolutely lost it. Panicked and forgot where he was—he was running from people that weren’t even there! What if that happens again when he’s holding the baby in his arms? Or what if Kanan gets triggered and runs off, and Ezra can’t follow him because he has to watch the kid? Kanan needs to see a doctor, or a mental health specialist.”

           “And where are we going to find one of those, Sabine?” Hera snapped.

           “If Kanan wasn’t a Jedi, I’d take him to Clan Wren; we have a lot of therapists and psychologists that specialize in war-related trauma. But I don’t know if I could hold my Clan to secrecy for a Jedi’s sake, even though he’s helped us.”

           Hera blew on her tea and gripped the cup as tightly as she could to keep her hands from shaking. “We don’t have any other choice but to continue with our plan. I doubt Rex can get one of his “shady friends” to provide a therapist, and we can’t risk anyone else knowing about Kanan and Ezra’s survival. And we can’t send the baby to Ryloth—“

           “Why not? The entire Free Ryloth movement could protect it.”

           Hera squeezed her third cake into crumbs on her plate. “Absolutely not!”

           Sabine flinched back at Hera’s tone, but stood her ground. “Are you saying that you don’t trust your own people?”

           “You don’t trust yours—“

           “Because we’ve been fighting against the Jedi for thousands of years! Two good Jedi aren’t going to change our peoples’ minds, no matter what! But Ryloth wouldn’t protect the grandchild of Cham Syndulla?”

           “We. Aren’t. Mandalorians.” Hera hissed. “We never have been. We’ve been beaten down and oppressed ever since the galaxy figured out how valuable we were as slaves! When those slaving ships come down from the atmosphere, when the Imperials come knocking at your door, when you’ve got six mouths to feed and nothing else to trade, all bets are off the table! I’ve seen it happen before. My child would be better off on the Ghost, or with Kanan, despite his problems, no matter what you or my father think!” Hera slammed her cup down on the serving tray. “Thank you for the snack. Please take the Ghost to our rendezvous coordinates with my father.”

           Sabine snatched up the serving tray. “Yes, General.” If the door hadn’t slid open when she left, she probably would’ve kicked it down.

           Hera closed it again before EW-6 could scold her, then went back to her bunk and put her head in her hands. What if Sabine is right? What if Kanan can’t handle taking care of the baby, and it’s too much for Ezra to handle alone?

           For the second time in an hour, she wished Kanan were at her side, holding her in his arms, his hand pressed against her belly as they felt their child move. When I see him again, I’ll have to let him know that it’s okay for him to reach out to me in the Force when we’re apart. But, for right now, you’re just going to have to deal with him not at your side. You can handle this.

           Hera sighed and picked up her datapad to look at the list of their current supplies. Back to work.

--------------------------------------------------

Twenty-four hours later:

           Hera and Sabine sat together on the loading platform of the Ghost, watching the sun dip over the horizon of the plains of some unknown little planet in the Anoat system. It probably wasn’t wise to rendezvous in such a pro-Empire sector, but it was the easiest meeting point between their old location and Ryloth. Hera only relaxed when she recognized her father’s private, unmarked ship making its descent through the atmosphere. “Here he comes.”

           Sabine took off her helmet and sat it at her side. “Hera, I’m sorry that I yelled at you earlier. I didn’t consider how things looked from your point of view.”

           “I didn’t either, and I’m sorry, too. And you’re somewhat right: we need to find some way to help Kanan. But I’m not going to send the baby to Ryloth.”

           Sabine frowned and pushed a strand of her hair away from her face. She’d dyed it again last night: it looked black in the dark, but when the light hit it just right, a vibrant, emerald green was revealed. Like a bird I once saw on Corellia. “So, what are you going to do?”

           “We’ll see how Kanan and Ezra handle being on their own for the next few months. If Kanan doesn’t have any more incidents, or they’re manageable, then maybe things will be fine. If not, we’ll consider another plan. I was thinking…once the baby is born, I was planning on leaving EW-6 with the household, in case something were to happen with the baby. Since EW-6 does provide a lot of soothing, stress-relieving medication…if Rex could keep us supplied with meds, maybe it could prescribe something to Kanan?”

           Sabine grimaced. “Prescribing something like that without a doctor’s recommendation is really risky.”

           “I know. We’ll look up the manufacturer’s instructions on the droid to see if it’s at all possible, and I won’t ask Kanan to do anything he isn’t comfortable with. But we don’t have much of a choice, otherwise. The Rebellion has a shortage of human doctors, and I don’t know where in the galaxy we’d be able to find a therapist to treat Kanan without alerting the Empire.” This damn war…he needs a real doctor to sit down with and get the help he deserves, not some generic meds prescribed by a midwife droid.

           Sabine nodded. “All right. If you promise that we’ll find an alternative solution if this “raise the baby in secret” thing doesn’t work out, I’ll put out a few feelers in my Clan to see if I could swear anyone to secrecy and get Kanan a therapist, if he wants to risk getting one. I’ll just lie and say I’ve met a new recruit in the Rebellion that’s Force-sensitive and has been in one too many battles.”

           The risk was terrible…but if it could help Kanan, it might be worth it. “It’s a deal. But let’s not start making plans until we ask what Kanan wants to do. I’m sure he’ll be open to any suggestions, since he wants to be the best father that he can for our child, but we need to talk to him first.”

           “Agreed. And maybe Ezra needs some help, too. Zeb said he was kind of subdued after that artillery explosion.”

           Their conversation ended when the ship touched down, and a few minutes later, the gangway opened up and Cham Syndulla exited the ship. Hera stood and straightened her shirt, then walked out to meet him. “Father—“

           And her father pulled her in for a rough hug. “I am so very sorry for you, my child,” he whispered. “For you to have to endure this loss…in your condition…”

           Hera moved away from the hug, even though she relished the closeness for once. “Okay, let’s clear this up: did you come alone?”

           “Yes, but what does—“

           “Kanan and Ezra are alive. We faked their deaths, and they’re going to raise the baby in secret while I keep fighting in the Rebellion. I couldn’t tell you over the transmission because I can’t risk any of our messages being intercepted.”

           Cham looked from Hera to Sabine, then back to Hera. “Are you serious?”

           Hera sighed. “Father, when have I ever not been serious?”

           Cham swallowed. “Well, I am glad they survived…and that you will not have to raise your child alone…”

           Hera sighed again. I am getting really sick of explaining this to everyone. “Please, Father, can we go back to the Ghost and set off for our secret home? I want to see how the move-in is going. And we could use your input as to how to baby-proof the place.”

           “Yes. We can speak more about this on the way. And shall I cook you some rycrit stew as we are in hyperspace? My grandchild needs good, Rylothian food to grow healthy and strong.”

           Hera’s shoulders sagged in relief. “That sounds good. Go and hide your ship, and we can be on our way. It’s going to take at least eighteen hours to get there, so we can either eat and then rest, or rest and then eat.” She was prepared for more arguments as they traveled, but at least her father wasn’t standing his ground and trying to reason with her in the middle of this abandoned planet. He’s taken the first step to accepting that this is going to happen. I’ll call this a victory…for now.

-----------------------------------------

Twenty standard hours later

Planet: Entralla, Outer Rim Territories

           Even though her father had subtly tried to steer the conversation back to leaving the Rebellion and returning to Ryloth to raise the baby, Hera hadn’t lost the extreme sense of satisfaction at having had her first real Twi’leki meal in several years. She’d had imitations in various cantinas, yes, but nothing beat delicious rycrit stew sopped up with sour, freshly-baked munch-fungus bread. And nothing beats a good Rylothian meal cooked up by my father.

           But Sabine begged to differ.

           “Air, I need air!” She shrieked, as the loading platform descended. She leapt out of the Ghost before the ramp had fully descended, laying face-first in the knee-deep grass as she sucked in lungfuls of air.

           Hera saw Ezra coming towards them, but he cringed away and drew a sleeve up to his nose. “Holy Force, what is that smell? What died?!”

           “Me!” Sabine choked. “I died after having to smell that garbage for the past three hours!” Still lying face-first in the grass, she pointed at Cham, who stood beside Hera. “It’s his damn cooking that did it!”

           Cham scoffed. “What is wrong with my stew? Our recipe was handed down through Clan Syndulla over thirty generations—“

           Zeb came to the ship next, sniffing the air that was filtered out of the Ghost’s ventilation systems. “Just smells kind of burnt. It’s not that bad.”

           “Thank you,” Cham said.

           Hera shook her head. Huh. Maybe that’s why I could never find authentic Twi’lek cooking anywhere in the galaxy. “It’s good to see you all!” She hugged Ezra, but he moved away quickly, gagging at the smell of munch-fungus bread on her breath. “How are things going in the setup?”

           Zeb grinned. “Come and see for yourself.”

           Hera walked off the ramp and looked around at the rolling hills they now called home. Entralla was a mostly-deserted world after the Clone Wars; two battles on the opposite side of the continent they were standing on had led to most of the citizens either fleeing to other systems or moving to the three continents across the ocean, which was about a hundred kilometers away. Neighbors were few and far between, and the probe they’d sent out showed they were alone for at least forty or fifty kilometers, or even more. They’d found an abandoned home that required extensive cleanup and repairs, but would suit them just fine once it was fixed up. The geothermal vents needed replacing and the insulator drapes were moldy, but those could be easily secured on any planet within the Outer Rim without undue suspicion. And the planet itself is pretty nice, too. Warm and wet, with frequent summer rains, the grasses of the hills grew long and thick, and the trees were thin and bare, but the hills could easily hide a ship as big as the Ghost, so it wasn’t a big deal to have next-to-no tree cover.  

           Zeb led Hera around the base of the nearest hill, revealing the homestead. Three small tents were erected outside, and various pieces of furniture were scattered around the bare ground outside the entrance. “We’re scrubbing down every inch of the place and disinfecting all the appliances, but we’re making good progress, and we haven’t encountered anything alarming yet. No poisonous molds or disease-carrying vermin.”            

           “Well that’s a relief.” Hera looked around. “Where’s Kanan?”

           “Working on the tub in the ‘fresher.” Zeb winked. “Should we give you two a few minutes…alone?”

           Hera slapped his shoulder as she walked by, just enough that he winced. “That’d be nice, Zeb, thank you!”

           Hera entered the main living area of the homestead, sunk three inches into the floor, soon to be dominated by wraparound couches. The living area was open to the main kitchen and dining rooms, with two main bedrooms, as well as a small ‘fresher for the master bedroom, and a second, larger ‘fresher for more public use. She would’ve liked a third or even a fourth bedroom, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. We were lucky enough to find this place as it was.

           She found Kanan perched on the edge of the tub, sleeves rolled up past his elbows, a paintbrush and can of sealant at his side. He was working quickly, dipping his brush into the sealant and feeling for any cracks in the lining of the big, round basin built into the floor, then quickly covering any flaws he found. “I felt you coming,” he said, without turning around. “But this stuff dries quickly once it’s opened, and I didn’t want to waste the can.”

           Hera sat beside him and watched him work. “You’re perfectly fine. How are things turning out here?”

           Kanan smiled a little as he started on a large crack on the edge of the lip of the tub. “Good. Very good. Better than we could’ve ever expected, actually. Rex is making a supply run for us, and we figured out it shouldn’t be too hard to make five or six trips a year to stock up.”

           They sat in silence for a while, Hera helping him find places to repair that he missed on his first sweep of the tub. “Kanan, I heard that you…had some issues after you and Ezra faked your deaths.”

           “…Yes. I…forgot where I was, to put it simply.”

           “How are you feeling now?”

           “The same as before it all happened, I think: I’m nervous around fire, but I’m coping.”

           Hera put an arm around his shoulder and leaned against his back. He stopped for a moment to clasp her hand, then continued working. “I don’t want you to just have to ‘cope’ with this. I want you to feel better. We were thinking…maybe EW-6 could prescribe you something, if it can calculate a dosage of medicine for a human male.”

           Kanan frowned in concentration. “Maybe. I don’t know if that’ll be safe.”

           “You don’t have to start taking anything if you don’t feel comfortable, especially since we’re just getting it prescribed from a droid.”

           “Could we wait a few months and see how I’m doing then? I honestly do feel more at peace here; meditation comes easier to me, and when I am around fire, it’s much easier to recover from the fear. Being away from the war is helping immensely.”

           “Yes. We can do that. But if you need help, Kanan…”

           “I’ll get it, one way or another. For the baby’s sake.”

           Hera gently kissed his cheek, and smirked, when his nose wrinkled at the scent on her breath. “For your sake, too, luv. You shouldn’t have to deal with this alone.”

           Kanan smiled and put down his paint brush. “I’d kiss you again, but you really need to brush your teeth. What in the hell did you eat?”

           Hera exhaled into her open palm and sniffed. “It’s only rycrit stew and munch-fungus bread! Why is everyone making a big deal about it?”

           “Just the names alone sound toxic. And the baby was fine with you putting that into your body? What exactly are you feeding our kid? Is it gonna grow a third eye now?”

           Hera playfully slapped his shoulder. “Stop it! Everyone’s fine, according to EW-6. And it’s nice and content after I ate, thank you very much.”

           Kanan leaned down and spoke in the general direction of her belly. “Is Mommy feeding you garbage, sweetie? Hmm?” He dodged another one of Hera’s shoves. “Is she feeding you mold and fungus and other yucky things? She’s so cruel to you, isn’t she?”

           Hera laughed. “Say that to my father’s face—I dare you.”

           Kanan straightened up. “Oh kriff, I forgot that your father was here. Is he sitting outside, ready to blast my balls off for getting you pregnant?”

           Hera offered him a hand and helped him to his feet. “Only one way to find out. Come on, everyone’s waiting outside.”

 -------------------------------------------------

           Kanan’s balls are still intact, fyi.

           I picked the planet Entralla out of nowhere. It had some stuff happening on it in Legends, but new canon doesn’t have anything going on, so it seemed perfect.

           I modeled the Syndulla-Jarrus homestead off pictures that I found of the Erso homestead from Rogue One.

           And the creature that “attacked” Kanan in his flashback is from my multifandom story, as per the usual with odd events in this fic. She’s the closest thing I have to an evil character on the side of my “good guys”, and it’s a very lucky thing that Kanan doesn’t remember much of that encounter….for now!

[artificialqueens]

A Different Kind of Art (Sashea) [Part ⅓] - May

Being the digital art curator at a gallery is never easy, especially when inspiration is nonexistent, no one takes your art seriously and you start to get attached to the talent you’ve sourced.

A/N: Someone requested this fic from me and I kind of ran away with the plot. Hopefully I’ve done the prompt justice and you guys enjoy it, I’ve enjoyed writing it. Feedback is always appreciated here or at artificial-may, and a massive thank you to Bramble for betaing this  xx

In the past few weeks, winter had morphed into spring, although you wouldn’t have known from the temperatures that still hung low. It was another unseasonably cold spring day, and as soon as Sasha emerged from the subway station the wind instantly began whipping around her, causing her hair and coat to lose the definition she had spent careful time creating. The coat flapped in the breeze, and blonde strands of her hair flew every which way, tangling in on themselves and gluing themselves to her lips thanks to the shiny red lipstick painted there. Like every commuter in the city, she put her head down, and made her way forth to her destination, internally cursing the abnormal weather.

The gallery where she worked was thankfully not a far walk, although she was thoroughly dishevelled by the time she stumbled through the revolving glass doors. A quick glance in the large window confirmed her suspicions - she was an absolute mess right now. Trying to smooth down her blonde curls to their prior state, she made her way through the main atrium. The lifts were deserted, which Sasha was grateful for. Whenever there was someone else there their contempt for her was almost palpable - “she’s the graphic artist” their faces seemed to say. It didn’t normally bother Sasha, she was happy in her little section of the gallery where computer generated shapes and live performances were considered art just as much as the oil canvasses that hung the whisper-quiet marble halls in the other parts of the gallery. However, almost a year had passed since she had taken the position of graphic art curator at the gallery and for almost a year every day there had been a different polished worker who looked down at her.

The lift dinged, and Sasha headed down to the basement level where her cramped office and workspaces were, an area that was safe from the critiques of the classical artists and curators. It was always warm down there, it also housed all the large computer equipment that serviced the rest of the gallery, and Sasha supposed some director had thought that since the graphics artists used computers, they would be at home with wires and modems everywhere. More than once, their department had been confused with the IT department, and Aja, Sasha’s easily irritated and easily bored secretary had been given a warning about how she spoke to employees after loudly suggesting where several members of the museum’s executive team could plug their cables.

The lift doors opened directly into the main workspace, which only contained Aja’s desk and a large table. A short corridor led to Sasha’s office, which if she stood in the middle and stretched enough she could touch all four walls of at the same time, and a boxy meeting room that had last been redecorated in the mid-70s. It wasn’t a lot, and Sasha could see how this could make other departments question the sincerity of the digital art department, but to her it was something precious. She had taken the position as it was about to wilt and die, and with the help of the other digital art worker, Peppermint, they had been able to establish regular collections that were beginning to make a name for themselves around the city.

Aja nodded at Sasha, and that was likely the largest hello she’d get from the girl, who was leaning forward in her squeaky office chair, typing rapidly on her phone, obviously more engrossed in whatever bad decision one of her friends had made over their drunken weekend than the pile of paperwork that had been sitting on her desk for a fair while now. Sasha made a mental note to file it herself later that night, or they may as well have thrown the documents out of the top storey window. Aja might have an ear to the ground on the most up-and-coming artists of the city, but trying to get her to do work was like asking a dolphin to set up a Christmas tree. You could try, but there’d be either no result or more work to do than you’d started with.

The department was quiet anyway. They’d just set up an exhibition, which meant they had a few weeks of reprieve before the stress of the next exhibition came around. Usually, Sasha took this opportunity to create some of her own works, which usually ended up on display in the exhibitions. Once, Sasha had dreamed of getting into galleries like the Met with her traditional paint-on-canvas art, but had found the innumerable obstacles too much, and had instead found a passion in graphic art, and pixels and styluses had begun to become her staples rather than brushes and thick paper.

However, for the past few months Sasha was beginning to feel as though she had no talent left. Too often did she find herself staring at a blank project, spinning her pen around her fingers, feeling her eyes dry up from the bluish light emitted by her laptop. Even this morning, she’d woken up on the couch with her laptop burning her legs. Inspiration usually came and went but right now it felt as though it was never coming back.

She’d dumped her bag down, and was rifling through some papers, a halfhearted attempt at procrastination, when Peppermint poked her head through the door. Seeing Sasha’s actions she smiled slightly. “Not in the mood for work?” she asked, letting herself in and leaning against the doorframe. Sasha rolled her eyes. “I haven’t been in the mood for work for about a month, Pep. Which is strange because-” “Because this is your passion and you’re usually so brilliant?” finished Peppermint. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll get back into it, you just need to find a spark.” “Could you be any more cliche?” groaned Sasha. “I know inspiration will hit but it’s starting to feel like it never will.” Peppermint made a sympathetic noise, before pushing herself up. “You know what we should do? Figure out the next installation.” Sasha looked up at Peppermint. “We’ve only just finished the current one though.” “Yeah, but it’ll take your mind off coming up with work of your own.”

Sasha supposed Peppermint was right, she always seemed to be. There was something about the older woman that always made Sasha feel as though she’d be okay, no matter what issues she was having. Leaning back in her chair, Sasha chewed on her pen, thinking. “I wanted to see if we could do a performance element,” she mused. “Like, not just lights and that but have an opening with performers to showcase not only the art we put on display but also up-and-coming artists in the area.” Peppermint nodded along as Sasha spoke. “Because the other departments have launches all the time, why should we be different? Except y’know, we won’t have the string quartets and the champagne,” she added as an afterthought. Peppermint was smiling broadly as Sasha put her now mildly mangled pen back on the desk. “See, you still have good ideas!” she said encouragingly. “That sounds really good, we could get club performers and raise money for the department - then we might actually be able to afford champagne for the next launch.” Pleased that she’d at least managed to sort out one issue, Sasha continued, a little apprehensive. “I, I just don’t really know anyone we could contact.”

It was true. The past few months the setting of Sasha’s life had consisted of her house, the gallery and the subway journey on the way between the two. She’d been so wrapped up in herself and her art (or rather the lack of it) that she briefly wondered if the reason she couldn’t create anything at the moment was because she needed to go out, like some sort of twisted “which came first the chicken or the egg” type scenario.

Peppermint must have understood however, as she took in Sasha’s concerns without any remarks, instead choosing to mutter to herself “performers, performers” as she thought. Sasha’s insides twisted a little bit. What kind of curator was she if she couldn’t even name one artist she wanted to display? Luckily her internalisation was cut short by a quick intake of breath from Peppermint. “Got it,” she said, grabbing Sasha’s arm, and jerking her out of the office so they were standing in front of Aja’s desk. Aja looked up lazily, at Peppermint’s wide and excited grin and Sasha’s face, painted in an expression of utmost confusion.

“Aja, you know that kid at the club last night,” began Peppermint, “the friend of yours?” “Well I do have multiple friends Peppermint, you’re going to have to be a little more specific,” responded Aja, turning her phone off and dropping her phone onto the paper littered surface of her desk in a way that Sasha considered way too overdramatic. Peppermint rolled her eyes and continued. “She was performing, she had long black hair,” Peppermint was gesticulating now, and Sasha still had absolutely no clue what was going. “Yeah, Shea? What about her?”  “Sasha wants live performers club performers and stuff for the next exhibition, and how perfect would she be for that?” Aja’s face lit up at that, and Sasha felt a little bubble of excitement at the base of her core. Maybe this installation would be the perfect project to prove to the rest of the gallery that digital art was more than just a cool little brother to the classical artwork in the gallery, tagging along and being included because it had to.

“Seriously Sash, you should check her out,” drawled Aja, “she does everything, dance, sing, she’s great.” “Well that’s great, I mean that sounds perfect,” said Sasha, “would she be down though?” “I don’t know, probably. She usually does performances at the spring festival each year, and since that’s on at the moment, she might be a bit busy, but who knows? Do you want her details?” asked Aja, the aforementioned details already up on her phone, waiting for Sasha’s approval for sending the message. “Of course,” Sasha responded, then added hesitantly, “does she have a portfolio though, it’s gallery protocol…” Aja rolled her eyes and Peppermint laughed behind her. “I don’t know if she’d have a portfolio per se,” said Peppermint, “but there’s a ton of her performances on YouTube and I think that would be enough to convince anyone she’s an amazing performer.” “Well I’ll go check out some of her videos quickly then I’ll give her a call if she has what we’re looking for,” said Sasha, nodding in thanks to Aja, who just smirked and said, “oh she will be.”

One and a half hours later, Sasha looked at the clocked and almost jumped out of her chair after blinking slowly at the clock. For about fifteen minutes, Peppermint and Aja had stood behind her, watching the YouTube videos, before they had mentioned they had other work to do, in Peppermint’s case looking through the accounts, in Aja’s looking through her Instagram feed. Sasha had shooed them out of the office, and she’d told them she was going to call the girl in the videos, but somehow she just couldn’t stop herself from pressing play on a new video. The way the girl in the videos moved was entrancing, hypnotic, and she had Sasha completely hooked, even just from the way she walked onto the various stages, sure and confident in her ability. If Sasha had been even somewhat doubtful of whether Aja’s friend would be the right performer for the exhibition, she supposed that spending nearly all her  browsing through her performances showed that Sasha had nothing to worry about.

A little guiltily, Sasha looked out of the office to where her coworkers sat, and a small shiver of anticipation ran through her. She’d just received a text from Aja full of other bands and artists they could use for the exhibition launch and Sasha could see the event forming in her head, and was thrilled that something was finally going right. Her heart was beating quickly, maybe a little too quickly as she picked up the phone and dialed the number Aja had sent her. The phone rang three times, and those three electronic trills were just enough to start Sasha doubting her project. She was about to end the call when someone finally picked up.

“Hello, this is Shea Coulee.”